Raindrops on the Pavement
by Bobbi Johnson
Summary: Charlotte Brown, a young Australian, is excited to start at her new boarding school in a foreign country. Little does she know that she's about to enter the aftermath of a terrible tragedy. Will she ever be able to break through the icy barriers that her new housemates have put up, or will she be stuck on the outside forever?
1. Chapter 1

**Hi guys, this is my first story and I'm super excited about it!**

 **Basically this story AU from the night of the prom (but the story doesn't actually start until the start of season two). Couples include Mick/Mara (in the beginning), Jerome/Mara (later), Patricia/Eddie (also later) lots of Fabian/Nina, a few mentions of Alfie/Amber and some one sided Joy/Fabian. There is also an OC, Charlotte, but I'm not sure if I'll be pairing her with anyone yet.**

 **If you have time to review that would be amazing because I'd really love some feedback, but don't worry, I won't be one of those writer who refuses to post until they have a certain number of reviews. At the moment I think I'll post a new chapter once a week, but if I'm writing faster then I'll write faster.**

 **Also I'll try to keep the POVs the same throughout the whole chapter but they will vary between chapters.**

 **Anyway, on with the story. Enjoy!**

 _Charlotte's POV_

"This is it- Anubis House."

I craned my neck, looking out the window to get a view of the boarding school that was to be my new home. The house was old to say the least, and it had a mysterious, almost creepy air to it. I shuddered as my taxi pulled into the driveway.

"Thanks," I got out and paid the driver- this took a while as the English money was very confusing.

"No problem ma'am," he pulled my bag out of the boot before getting back into the driver's seat. "Have a nice day."

Once the taxi had left I turned around to inspect the schoolyard. It was buzzing: students were everywhere, saying goodbye to their parents, reuniting with their friends after the long summer holidays (it felt weird saying that in September!). Grinning with excitement, I picked up my suitcase and made my way towards Anubis House.

"Hello? Is anybody here?" my voice echoed through the house as I pushed open the door. Surely I wasn't the only person here- somebody else must already have arrived.

"You must be Amber's replacement."

I looked up to the top of the stairs where the voice had come from. A dark haired girl was watching me from the landing.

"I'm sorry, I don't know who Amber is," I told her, my smile faltering slightly.

"You wouldn't," she said flatly. "Too late now."

"Okay," I said slowly, extremely confused. "I'm Charlotte. Charlotte Brown. I'm supposed to be staying here this year?"

"That's nice," she didn't seem the slightest bit interested, so I decided to change the topic.

"Where can I put my things?" I asked brightly.

"Just leave the in the hall," she shrugged. "We haven't decided on rooms yet. We have to wait for Nina."

"We?" I asked, hopeful that maybe there was somebody else here as well, someone a little less… cold?

"Who are you terrorising this time, Patricia?" as if in answer to my question, another girl appeared behind the first. She stopped short when she saw me. "Oh. Hi."

Wow, the people at this house really knew how to give you a warm welcome! Not.

"Hey," I waved at her. "I'm Charlotte. I'm new here."

She looked at me for a moment, as if weighing me up. "Mara," she smiled eventually. "Nice to meet you. What's the accent?"

Mara was observant, I'll give her that.

"Australian," I told her. "I'm from Sydney."

"Cool," she nodded. "We were just going to the common room to wait for the others. Want to come?"

"Sure," I grinned, glad to finally be sort-of accepted. "Lead the way."

The two girls descended the stairs and led me into a kind of lounge room, where a middle aged lady and a tall, blonde boy were placing food on what appeared to be a dining table.

"You must be Charlotte," the woman smiled warmly. "I'm Trudy, the housemother here. This is Jerome, and I see you've met Mara and Patricia."

I nodded.

"Have you heard from the others?" Patricia asked.

Trudy frowned. "Mick's stuck in traffic, last I heard. Nina's plane landed at noon, so she'll be here in a little while. I haven't heard from Fabian, so I guess he'll be here soon."

"What about Alfie?" Mara frowned.

Trudy sighed. "Alfie's decided not to come back, sweetie. He's going to a school in London, I think."

"I'm not surprised," Patricia said. "Not after everything that happened last year."

I wondered what had happened last year, but decided it wasn't the time or place to bring it up. There would be plenty of time to find out later.

Just then I heard the front door open. A few moments later a tall boy with dark hair entered the room.

"Is Nina here yet?" he asked without even saying hello to anyone. He seemed almost…worried?

"No sweetie," Trudy told him. "But she shouldn't be more than about fifteen minutes, I don't think."

"Oh, alright. Hey guys," he turned to the teenagers before looking at me. "Who are you?"

"I'm Charlotte, I'm new here," I told him.

"I figured. I'm Fabian, nice to meet you," he nodded.

The next person to arrive was the boy called Mick. As soon as he'd said hi to everyone and been introduced to me he made a b-line for the table.

"Not until Nina gets here," Trudy told him sternly.

"Like she'll eat any of it," I heard Mara say to Patricia, who agreed sadly.

About five minuted after Mick had arrived, a girl with dirty blonde hair appeared in the doorway and everyone fell silent. She was thin with dark rings under her eyes, and she didn't smile as she looked around the room. Her eyes stopped travelling when they met mine and we stayed that way for a moment, everyone watching silently. Suddenly the girl broke eye contact with me and ran out of the room. I could hear her… sobbing?... as she ran up the stairs.

"Nina!" Fabian, the dark haired boy, followed her out of the room. Mara when to get up, but Patricia stopped her.

"Did I do something wrong?" I looked between my new housemates.

"Of course not, sweetie," Trudy told me. "Nina's just taking a bit longer to adjust, that's all. She'll be alright."

"Adjust to what?"

I watched as everyone in the room exchanged glances.

"She and Amber were close," Mara told me eventually.

"But this is the 21st century," I pointed out, still confused. "Can't they just text, or use Skype or Facebook or something?"

Patricia got up and left the room, leaving me more confused. I mean, it sounded like this Alfie dude wasn't coming back either, and they weren't making such a big fuss about him.

Mara opened her mouth, but it was a few moments before she actually started speaking. "Amber…" her voice cracked. "Amber died, at the end of last year. She and Nina were really close, and… Nina kind of blames herself."

Suddenly everything clicked into place.

"Oh. I'm sorry."

"It's not your fault," Mara shook her head. "And it's not Nina's either. Fabian will be able to cheer her up though. He's the only one who can."

So Fabian and Nina were dating, I assumed. That explained a lot.

At that moment we heard the door open.

"Guys?" an unfamiliar voice called out and a few seconds later the owner appeared in the doorway.

"Joy!" Mara jumped from her seat and hugged her. "What are you doing here?"

"Just thought I'd pop in and say hi," Joy told us. "I'm staying in Isis House this year. Where's Fabes?"

"Upstairs talking to Nina," Patricia's face appeared in the doorway. "And she's really upset Joy, so don't even think about it."

Joy pouted, but didn't say anything else.

The afternoon passed relatively quickly- I made polite small talk with Trudy, Mara and Patricia until tea time.

Fabian and Nina were the last to arrive to eat. Nina sat at the head of the table, closest to the door, and Fabian sat to her right. There were two free seats, one on either side of Patricia. I went to sit to her right, but for reasons unbeknownst to me quickly redirected me so I was sitting on her other side.

Trudy brought out a bowl of spaghetti and placed it at the centre of the table. Not wanting to cause any arguments, I let everybody else get some first.

"You go," Nina smiled weakly at me when we were the only two left with empty plates.

"It's okay," I shook my head, but she pressed the tongs into my hands.

"Really, I'm fine," she told me, so I reluctantly began to serve myself. "I wanted to say sorry," Nina said eventually. "For before. I just… I didn't expect them to replace her so quickly, I guess. It really had nothing to do with you."

"It's fine," I told her, passing her the tongs. I noticed that everybody stopped eating to watch her as she put the spaghetti into her bowl.

She ended up with only about two mouthfuls of food. I watched as she poked at it with her fork while the others exchanged worried glances. I wondered what was going on.

Without saying anything, Fabian began to put some more pasta into Nina's bowl.

"I'm not hungry," she told him, but he ignored her.

"We need to sort out our rooms," Mara declared. "We didn't want to make any decisions until you came, Nina."

Nina frowned. "Well I know you two probably want to share again-" she began.

"But we don't have to," Patricia told her.

"-and I'm fine with that," she hesitated. "But I can't sleep in that same room."

Patricia nodded. "If that's what you want. Mara and I can sleep in your old room then, and you and Charlotte can sleep in ours. Are we decided?"

All the girls nodded.

"I'll go take up my stuff then," Nina decided, and before anybody could stop her she'd left the room.

"How much did she actually eat?" Patricia asked once Nina was out of earshot.

"Maybe three mouthfuls," Fabian sighed. "What if she's been doing this all summer?"

"She'll be alright Fabian," Mara assured him.

"Not if she doesn't eat, she won't," he got up and left the room, taking Nina's dinner with him.

 **Thanks so much for reading! Tomorrow's a public holiday, so I'll see what I can do, but no promises. You will definitely have a new chapter within the week though.**

 **See you soon!**

 **-Bobbi**


	2. Chapter 2

**Because you guys are so amazing I've been working hard all day to finish this chapter. I'm also halfway through the next one which should be up on Thursday or Friday.**

 **Thanks to everyone who read the last chapter, especially those who reviewed- you guys made my day!**

 **Also in case you were wondering, the answer is no, I don't own House of Anubis.**

 **Enjoy the chapter!**

 _Nina's POV_

I woke up screaming Amber's name.

Yay, something new and different for me! Not.

I sat up in my bed and watched Charlotte, the new girl, stir before sitting up. I immediately felt bad- the nightmares had been okay when I was alone in my room, but now that I was sharing they were going to be a real problem.

"Are you okay Nina?" Charlotte asked sleepily.

I sighed and collapsed back into my bed. "Yeah, sorry. Just a nightmare."

"Okay," through the darkness I saw her lie back down. To be perfectly honest, I was sick of the nightmares. They'd been a nightly occurrence since prom night, he only exception being the morning after when I'd fallen asleep on the couch with Fabian (which we don't talk about- I was sick of the teasing).

I leaned over to look at my alarm and groaned inwardly. It was only half past one, which meant I'd only been asleep for about two and a half hours. Knowing that going back to sleep would undoubtedly mean more nightmares and once again waking Charlotte, I decided that staying up would be a better option. I took the book I'd been reading earlier that night off my bedside table and settled down to read it by the light of my phone.

By half past six I'd finished it, so I decided to get up and do something productive.

I considered offering to help Trudy make breakfast, but then I remembered the Cup of Ankh. So long as nobody had taken it, it was still hidden in the hollow tree we'd left it in on the night when everything went wrong.

Silently I got dressed and slipped out the front door. I shivered- the morning was quite chilly for summer, but I didn't want to risk going back in to get a jumper.

It wasn't long before I arrived at the clearing where I'd assembled the cup.

Nothing had gone to plan that night. First of all I'd found Amber, lying unconscious on her bed. Then we'd met Joy as planned, but she hadn't been able to assemble the Cup. Long story short, it turned out that I was the Chosen One, not her. After that Joy had taken the decoy bag to Victor and his society, and we hadn't seen her again until Amber's funeral. Patricia had, of course, feared the worst: that they'd killed her upon discovering she'd lost the pieces. Fortunately this hadn't been the case. Victor had mysteriously disappeared after that and had been absent during our entire last week of school, due to 'personal reasons'.

It was later that night that Trudy had ushered us away from the prom and into the History classroom (where there was a mysterious looking hourglass with weird flies in it, might I add) and told us the bad news.

I shuddered. That night wasn't something I wanted to think about, at least not the bad bits. Stashing the Cup into my bag, I tried to focus on the good things that had happened that night.

Not that there were many, come to think of it.

Fabian and I had been voted prom king and queen that night. I use the term 'voted' lightly, because I'm pretty sure Mara and Patricia rigged it. Then we'd almost, _almost_ , kissed, right before I burst into tears and ran off the stage crying.

Not because I'd almost kissed him, just to be clear on that. It was just that 'Fabina' had always been Amber's project, and it was sad to think that she couldn't be there.

When I got back to the house I stashed my bad under my bed before going down to breakfast.

"…done something drastic," I heard Mara's anxious voice as I entered the common room.

Fabian was the first to spot me. "Oh my God, Nina," he sighed, the relief evident in his voice. Everyone turned to look at me and visible relaxed. "Where've you been? We were worried about you."

So Mara had been talking about me.

Well she had nothing to worry about; I wasn't going to do anything drastic.

I wasn't _Amber_.

"I just had to sort something out at school," I told them. "I'm fine, really."

I took my usual seat and stared to pick at a piece of dry toast. I wasn't really hungry, but I knew that if I didn't eat everyone would start to worry about me. That's all people ever seemed to do.

"Did you sleep alright after last night?" Charlotte asked me, trying to make polite conversation.

I groaned inwardly. _Three… two… one…_

"What happened last night?" Fabian asked right on cue.

As sweet as the guy is, it does get slightly annoying how protective he is of me.

"I had a nightmare," I told him before turning to Charlotte. "And yes, I slept fine."

They bought the lie, which as surprising given my track record.

After breakfast we didn't have much to do. School wasn't starting until the next day, and we'd all already finished unpacking.

"Let's play Truth or Dare," Mara suggested.

Jerome looked at her, apparently trying to decide whether or not she was joking. "In case you're lost, the nearest kindergarten is that way," he jerked his thumb over his shoulder eventually.

I saw Mara deflate slightly. "I just thought it would be a good way to get to know Charlotte -and each other- better."

"Most of us have known each other since we were eleven, babe," Mick pointed out. "We already know each other pretty well.

I wasn't too keen on the idea, either, but I could tell Mara really wanted to play.

Let's just say my supporting argument sounded much better in my head.

"We thought we knew Amber," I reasoned flatly. "Then she went and killed herself."

I hadn't realised this was news to Charlotte. She stared at me in shock and I avoided meeting her eye, feeling bad.

Way to drop a bombshell, Nina.

"I think it's a good idea," I could feel Fabian watching me with concern as he said this.

"Thankyou Fabian," Mara nodded. "I'll go first then, shall I?"

Nobody disagreed.

"Okay then, Jerome, truth or dare?"

Jerome contemplated for a moment. "Truth."

Mara grinned wickedly, and I was glad I wasn't in Jerome's shoes. "Do you like anyone from Anubis house?"

"I like all you guys," he feigned naivety, but Mara gave him a stern look. "Okay, fine. I do _like_ someone from Anubis House."

"Ooh," Patricia teased. "Jerome has a crush. Who's the unlucky girl?"

"I only have to answer one question," Jerome pointed out, but I already had my suspicions.

Apparently so did Mara. "It's not that hard to figure out," she reasoned. "I mean it can't be Amber for obvious reasons, I have a boyfriend, Fabian and Nina are as close to being a thing as they can actually be without being a thing-"

"No we're not!" we protested in unison.

"-so unless we're counting Charlotte, who's only been here five minutes, it has to be-"

"You think I like Patricia?" Jerome was genuinely disgusted. "I'd rather date _Matilda_ than her. No offence Trixie."

"Matilda?" Charlotte looked confused. "Is there someone else I haven't met yet?"

The others laughed, but I didn't fine it that funny. "Meet Matilda," I gestured towards the stuffed crocodile on the coffee table.

It was a weird thing that Amber had come up with, naming all of Victor's stuffed animals.

Because, and I quote, 'if the raven can have a name, why shouldn't the others too?'

Amber's words, not mine.

"Jerome it's your turn," I said quickly, trying to distract myself.

"Right," he turned to Fabian. "Truth or dare?"

"Truth," Fabian replied quickly, always one to err on the side of caution.

Jerome thought for a moment. "Do _you_ like anyone from Anubis?"

I could tell Fabian really didn't want to answer. "Are you actually going to ask me the same question?"

"Well I could ask _who_ you like," Jerome pointed out. "In which case we all know the answer would be-"

"Okay, okay," he said quickly. "Point taken. Yes, I like someone form Anubis. Happy?"

"Very," Jerome smirked.

I could feel everyone's eyes on me and I felt my cheeks heating up. I feigned interest in some non-existent dirt under fingernails.

Could it really be me he liked? I mean he had so much more in common with Mara- they were both studious and smart- and he _had_ almost asked Patricia to the prom. Not to mention the time I'd been sitting at the dining table with Amber when we'd heard Fabian shout, 'I could kiss you Patricia.'

The chances of it being me actually seemed pretty slim.

By this point the game had continued. Fabian had asked Mara a question, and whatever the answer had been must have been embarrassing because she was blushing slightly.

"I did not know that," Patricia was saying.

"Anyway," Mara turned to me, clearly wanting to change the subject. "Nina, truth or dare?

The game was getting boring with everyone picking truth, so I decided to spice things up a bit.

"Dare."

Mara smirked at me, and I immediately knew that I'd made the wrong decision. "I dare you… to kiss someone."

"Excuse me?" I asked in shock. Surely that was going a bit too far?

"I dare you to kiss any boy in this room, on the lips, for at least five seconds," she told me.

I really didn't want to do this. "Have you considered that maybe this is crossing a line?"

"This is truth or dare Anubis style," Jerome pointed out. "There are no lines. Once in year eight Alfie had to eat a live chick."

"And did he do it?" I asked, horrified.

"Admittedly, no," Jerome sighed. "But he would have, if Trudy hadn't intervened. Something about animal cruelty, I think. But this is perfectly safe and doesn't involve killing anything."

"What if I refuse?" I was getting desperate.

"Then you get the traditional, Anubis style consequences," Patricia shrugged.

Traditional Anubis style consequences? I really didn't want to know.

"Guys," Fabian said wearily. "Can't we just give her another dare?"

"You would be on Nina's side," Mara teased.

"Yeah, because she's my best friend. It's just like you'd be on Patricia's side."

"The only difference is that I don't dream about snogging her," Mara smirked.

Wow, that escalated quickly.

"Seriously guys?" I groaned, trying to bring the conversation back down to a level I was more comfortable with.

I could see that Charlotte was watching us with a confused expression. She leaned over and whispered something to Mara, who giggled and shook her head.

"You and the rest of the world. But no, they're not."

It didn't take a genius to figure out the topic of their conversation.

At this point Mara turned back to me. "It's no big deal Nina. It doesn't have to mean anything. We won't even tell anyone outside this room- we're your friends."

At that moment something clicked inside me. I don't know whether it was the fact that friendship was a touchy subject for me at that point or that I'd only had two and a half hours of sleep, but all of a sudden I'd had enough.

"Really?" I asked angrily. "If you were my friends you wouldn't be pressuring me into doing something I don't want to," I stood up and made my way towards the door. "See you guys later."

I'd reached the doorway when I heard Mara ask, "Where are you going, Nina?"

I swung around so violently that I almost lost my balance. "To find my real friends," I told her, leaving the room.

 **Thanks so much for reading guys! See you in a few days.**

 **-Bobbi**


	3. Chapter 3

**Hi again!**

 **Sorry, this chapter's quite short and kind of a filler. I've been working a lot the last couple of days and adding that onto school, homework and my aths is just... urgh. Next chapter should be up by Sunday though or Monday at the very latest.**

 **Disclaimer: I do not own House of Anubis.**

Fabian's _POV_

We all watched Nina leave in shock. There was absolute silence as we all looked at each other, confused as to why she had become so upset, so quickly.

"Admittedly we may have taken that a bit too far," Mara said guiltily.

"You think?" I asked, annoyed.

We heard the front door slam. With one last angry glance around the room, I got up and followed Nina outside. She didn't look back or slow down to wait for me, and I wasn't sure whether or not she realised I had followed her out.

"Nina!" I called out to her, jogging a few steps to catch up. I could almost see the conflict on her face as she decided whether or not she wanted to talk to me. After a few moments she slowed down, and I took this as an invitation to walk next to her.

"Are you okay?"

Nina didn't answer me, instead staring determinedly at the footpath in front of her.

"It's just teasing, you know. They're just bored because they don't have any real gossip."

Again I didn't get a reply, so I gave up and we walked for a few moments in silence.

I was kind of interested to know why it bothered Nina so much. I mean I knew why it bothered me –because I was frightened Nina would find out how I actually felt about her- but what was her reasoning? Surely she didn't find the idea of us _that_ 'ridiculous'.

"I went and got the Cup this morning," she told me eventually. "We need to find somewhere better to hide it."

So _that_ was where Nina had been this morning. We'd been worried sick about her when Charlotte and come down and told us that she wasn't in her bed.

I was kind of lost for ideas as to where we could hide the Cup. If there was anything we'd learnt last year it was that Victor called the shots at our school, and he could organise a search of our rooms in a heartbeat. Hiding things in the house was never a good idea.

We continued to walk in silence, contemplating where we could possibly hide the Cup (or at least that's what I assumed Nina was thinking about).

Eventually she turned to me. "Do you think she's watching us? Right now?"

I didn't have to ask to know who she was talking about. Suddenly I realised that maybe her storming off had less to do with the teasing than we'd thought.

"Sorry, I'm just being stupid," she sighed.

"No you're not," I shook my head. I was about to continue when Nina disappeared from beside me with a shriek.

"Nina?"

She was lying on the floor, clutching her ankle. "I think I sprained it."

"Let me have a look," I knelt down beside her and she took off her shoe. Her ankle was already a bit swollen and starting to bruise. "We should get back to the house. Trudy will be able to fix you up. Can you put pressure on it?"

"Only one way to find out," she shrugged, shifting slightly and attempting to stand up. She winced as she put weight on it, but she was able to stand alright.

I picked up her other shoe as I stood up. "Do you need me to help you walk back? There's no point hurting your ankle any more if you don't have to."

Nina took a step as if to protest, but almost collapsed when she tried to step on her bad ankle. I quickly caught her.

"Thanks," she said, leaning against me as we slowly made our way back to the house.

"Twenty pounds says they did," we heard Mick say as we entered the entrance hall.

"You're on," that was Jerome.

Betting on us? Did they actually not know when to stop?

I decided I was going to stop this nonsense once and for all. "You wait in here," I told Nina. "I'll go and get Trudy."

She nodded, so I helped her sit down on the stairs before going into the common room.

"Oh hey Fabian," Jerome said, trying to sound casual but failing miserably. "How was your walk?"

"Fabulous," I replied sarcastically. "Have any of you seen Trudy?"

"She's in the laundry, I think," Mara frowned. "Why?"

"Nina sprained her ankle," I told her, moving into the kitchen. "And seriously guys, didn't betting on us get old after the first twenty times?"

"Twenty?" Charlotte, who had been sitting quietly in the corner watching us, asked in disbelief.

"In fairness, it was only once," Jerome pointed out. "And it was mainly Amber's idea."

"Typical, Jerome. Blame it on the one person who can't defend themselves."

That had come from Patricia's mouth. We all looked at her.

"I'm just saying," she shrugged. "One day you'll have to learn to take the blame for yourself."

"But seriously guys," I sighed. "Can you cut it out?"

There was some muttered objection, but eventually everyone agreed.

"Thank you," I nodded, moving to the other side of the kitchen and opening the door to the laundry.

 **And thank** ** _you_** **for reading! Remember reviews, follows and favourites are amazing and make me write faster. See you soon!**

 **-Bobbi**


	4. Chapter 4

**So one of the races I was supposed to be running today got cancelled, which means I had more time to write and I'm able to get a chapter up tonight.**

 **Next chapter should be up on Monday unless I can find time tomorrow.**

 **I don't own House of Anubis.**

 **Enjoy the chapter and please review!**

 _Charlotte's POV_

It was only about 3 o'clock in the afternoon, but I was exhausted. That probably had something to do with the fact that it was three o'clock in the _morning_ in Australia.

Can't say I loved the jetlag.

I decided to go up to bed, but I thought I should check my emails first to see if my family or any of my Australian friends had sent me anything.

The regulation school laptop that I had been given the day before loaded surprisingly quickly, so I was logged into my emails within a few minutes.

 _14 unread emails._

I frowned as I read through them. Most of them were from my old school friends and my vast variety of natural, step and half siblings.

I'll admit it now, my family was pretty messed up.

There was one from my mum, telling me that her most recent divorce application had been approved, so it was bye-bye husband number four.

That's right, husband number four. I told you my family was messed up.

I was about to turn off the computer and go to bed when a bar popped up at the top of my screen.

 _Incoming call_ , it read. _Angus Porter_.

I frowned as I clicked on the word 'accept'. What on earth was Angus doing, calling me at three in the morning?

"Hey Charlotte," I heard him say, and a moment later my boyfriend's face appeared on the screen. "How's England?"

"English?" I suggested, and he rolled his eyes.

"Ha ha. How's your new school? What are the other kids like? Did you meet any boys cuter than me?" he pouted playfully.

"As a good girlfriend, I'm pretty sure I have to say no," I teased, causing him to laugh. "The others are alright; I haven't spoken to them much though."

Angus frowned. "Charlotte Brown, the social butterfly, is having trouble making friends?"

I rolled my eyes, hesitating slightly. "You know how I was only able to come to this school because a place opened up, right? How I was on, like, a waiting list?"

"Yeah."

"Well the girl whose spot I've taken, Amber, she… died. They're still getting over it. My roommate burst into tears the first time she saw me."

"Only you could make someone cry just by looking at them," Angus laughed, despite the serious topic.

I yawned, rolling my eyes. "What are you even doing up?" I asked him. "Isn't it some ridiculous time in the morning?"

"Is it a crime to want to talk to my girlfriend?" he asked. "I figured I'd have to wait until you got home from school."

I laughed. "As sweet as that is, classes don't start until tomorrow."

"You mean I stayed up for nothing?" he groaned. "Thanks for the heads up, Char."

I laughed. "Anyway, I'm exhausted. You should work out the time differences and call me in the morning. My morning, that is."

"Glad I'm appreciated," Angus said, mock offended. "Talk tomorrow?"

"Sounds good," I nodded and the screen went black. Without even bothering to put my computer away I collapsed back into my bed and fell asleep almost immediately.

The next time I woke up was on account of a loud thud.

I rolled over sleepily in my bed. Apparently the universe had decided that it didn't want me to sleep- last night it had been Nina, and tonight the mysterious thud.

I heard light footsteps, so I opened my eyes slightly. Through the darkness I could see a figure moving in the direction of the door, and Nina's bed appeared to be empty. I watched as she opened the door and silently slipped out.

"Hey," I heard a male voice from the other side of the door, presumably Fabian's. "Are you sure you're okay to do this with your ankle? I can go look on my own if you want."

"I'm fine," Nina said. "Come on, let's go."

I leaned over and glanced at my alarm clock. It was midnight, so I guess I had had a fairly decent amount of sleep. The question was, what on earth were Nina and Fabian doing sneaking around the house at that time?

I decided to find out.

Slipping my dressing gown on, I followed her out of the room. I was just in time to see them slip into the door which I had been told led to the attic, one of only two places in the house that was strictly out of bounds.

My curiosity got the better of me, so I quietly approached the door they had just disappeared through. Silently I pushed it open and made my way upstairs. I opened the door at the top to be met with the surprised and anxious faces of Fabian and Nina.

"What are you guys doing here?" I asked them.

"Charlotte?" Nina asked as the pair visibly relaxed. "What are _you_ doing here?"

"I asked first," I pointed out.

They looked at each other for a moment.

"We were… going on a date," Nina told me eventually. "We're secretly a couple."

While the story was definitely plausible, something about it didn't quite add up.

"That's right," Fabian confirmed after the confusion on his face had disappeared. "But you can't tell anyone, okay?"

Admittedly I had never been very good at keeping secrets, but there's a first time for everything, right?

"Sure," I nodded. "But can I ask why it has to be a secret?"

"More romantic that way," Nina told me as if I was the most obvious thing in the world, reaching out to grip Fabian's hand.

But wouldn't it have saved them so much trouble to just be honest about it? I was about to point this out when we heard a voice.

"Whoever is up there, come down immediately!"

The three of us looked at each other wide eyed- it was Victor, the caretaker of Anubis House. I had been told he was very strict. Nina moved to a corner of the attic where a large wooden board was leaning against the wall. Fabian followed her. He pulled the board aside slightly, knocking something off the table beside it but also revealing a kind of alcove.

The three of us squeezed inside. It was tight, but we managed to get the board back over just as the attic door opened.

"I know you're up here," we heard Victor say. "Show yourself immediately."

We held our breaths, willing him to go away and not find us.

"What do we have here?"

I looked wide eyed at Fabian and Nina, the three of us sure we'd been caught. The board of wood, however, did not move.

"The athenaeum is the place to look," a young girl's voice echoed through the silence. "Lift the wings to find the book. Hidden in this book of old, water of life and tears of gold."

What the hell was that? Was Victor holding some little girl hostage up here in the attic? I wouldn't have put it past him.

I saw Nina lean over and whisper something in Fabian's ear, but whatever it was she wasn't going to share it with me.

We heard Victor leave. I went to move the board so we could get out, but Nina stopped me.

"It might be a trap," she said in a whisper. "We should wait a few more minutes."

So that's what we did. The three of us stood in silence for who know how long without hearing a peep. Eventually Fabian nodded.

"I think we're safe. Come on, let's get out of here before he decides to come back."

Nina and I nodded, and silently we left the attic.

Though I went back to bed, I barely slept at all for the rest of the night. If the amount of tossing and turning Nina did during the night and the dark rings under her eyes in the morning were anything to go by, neither did she.

Breakfast was much quieter than it had been the day before. Everyone ate almost in silence, with the occasional 'pass the jam, Mara' or 'is there any more toast, Trudy?'. Everyone was already in their school uniform except me, so I went upstairs to get changed. By the time I'd come back down the house was as good as empty.

"Oh, hello Charlotte," Trudy frowned as I entered the kitchen in search of my housemates. "I thought you'd gone over with the others."

"Nope," I shrugged, trying not to show that I was a bit upset to have been left behind. "It's alright, I'll go over now. Bye."

"See you later, sweetie," Trudy smiled as I left the house.

The walk over to school was relatively short, and it wasn't hard to find to find my first class of the day- English.

As I entered I noticed that all the other Anubis residents were already there, seated in the row closest to the wall. Nina was still arranging her books and was het to sit down, and she was the first to see me.

"Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry Charlotte," she said. "We were going to wait for you."

"It's fine," I shrugged it off, taking a seat on the desk at the front in the second row.

While Nina had been talking to me another girl had taken her seat. It was the one from Isis House that I'd met on my first day.

"Erm, Joy," Fabian frowned, looking at Nina.

"Oh sorry," Joy said, reluctantly gathering up her things. "We used to share, I didn't…" she trailed off as she got up and came over to sit in the last vacant spot, which was incidentally right next to me.

"First my friends and now my Fabian," she pouted.

I wasn't sure if she was actually talking to me, but if she was I had no idea what she was going on about.

"Sorry?"

"Oh I forgot you're new, aren't you?" she said. "Let me fill you in. Basically I used to stay at Anubis, but then my parents took me out of school for a year and Nina took my place. Now I'm back, and she's taken everything that used to be mine, not to mention the fact that Fabian practically worships her. It's so unfair."

"So you and Fabian used to date?" I was really confused.

"Basically. But not anymore. He, along with everyone else, likes Nina way more than me."

This Joy girl seemed pretty insecure, to be honest. Nina didn't seem like the sort of person who would come in and demand attention over another girl.

I took Joy's silence as a chance to have a look around the classroom. There was a lot of whispering among the kids from the other houses, and many of them kept sending glances in the direction of the Anubis residents. The latter were remaining determinedly indifferent, not really acknowledging the fact that anybody but themselves existed.

The teacher -Mrs Andrews, according to my timetable- entered at this point.

"Morning," she addressed the class.

"Good morning Mrs Andrew," everyone replied.

"Right," she put her bag down on her desk. "World literature: fairy tales and folk stories. Joy, will you hand these out? Page 22 please."

Joy groaned, but got up and did as she was told.

 **And viola! See you on Monday and remember that reviews make me happy!**

 **-Bobbi**


	5. Chapter 5

**Hey guys!**

 **Another day, another chapter. Hope you enjoy it!**

 **Sorry this is another fairly short chapter, but the next one should be longer and up on Tuesday.**

 **As always, I don't own House of Anubis.**

 _Mara's POV_

"Hand the work in by next Friday, please," Mrs Andrews told the class as the bell went. Everyone hurried to be the first out of the classroom, but as usual I wasn't in any particular rush. It was lunchtime, so it wasn't like we had any classes to go to.

Mick had to go to training, so I was left to pack up my things on my own. The only other person in the classroom was Jerome, who was, to be honest, acting rather oddly.

"Are you okay Jerome?" I asked as I watched him put on a hat and a thick pair of sunglasses.

"I'm perfectly fine," he told me. "Just… trying out a new look."

Now he was beginning to sound like Amber. Perhaps he was channeling her spirit or something.

That thought made me shiver. _You don't think things like that Mara_ , I reminded myself sternly.

Jerome and I walked out of the classroom together and headed in the direction of the drama room. All the other Anubis residents (except for Charlotte, I noted) were already there, seated in a circle. Apart from them and Joy, the room was completely deserted.

"Hi guys," I sat down between Patricia and Nina.

"Hey Mara," Nina smiled at me, before turning to Jerome and frowning slightly. "Hey Jerome."

Jerome, who had been standing shadily in the corner, groaned and removed his creative additions to his school uniform before coming over to sit with us. The rest of us exchanged confused glances but didn't say anything.

Actually we didn't say anything about, well, _anything_. We all just sat there in silence. It was suffocating, and after about five minutes I simply couldn't take it anymore.

"I'm just going to the bathroom," I told everyone, even though I had no intention of going there. "I'll be back soon."

I picked up my bag and left. As I walked through the doorway I noticed that a number of the students from the other houses were standing suspiciously close to the door, as if they'd been watching us. It wouldn't have surprised me if they had been.

We'd become kind of like mini celebrities after Amber had died. Everybody was curious, wanting to know what we were doing, how we were taking things. They wanted gossip, which we'd been able to provide them with despite our best efforts not to.

I wasn't paying attention to where I was going, and next thing I knew I was on the floor.

"Mara?" I looked up to see Mick standing over me.

"Mick? Sorry, I wasn't watching where I was going."

He laughed. "It's alright babe, I wasn't either. Sorry about that."

"It's fine," I gave him a quick peck on the lips. "I thought you had training?"

"They cancelled," he frowned. "The hockey team was using the football field for their tryouts. But on the bright side, I get to spend more time with you."

I giggled. "Speaking of spending time together, I was thinking we should go into town tomorrow night to catch that new movie you wanted to see."

"Sounds great," he nodded, but then his face fell. "But we just rescheduled training to then."

I frowned, trying not to be too annoyed. Of course Mick had training.

"How about tonight?" I suggested.

"Perfect," he grinned. "What time do we need to leave?"

"I'll book a cab for seven," I told him.

By this point we were back at the drama room. We were about to go in, but Mick put his hand out to stop me. Silently he gestured back towards the history classroom. The door was slightly ajar and there were voices coming from inside.

"I'm not in the mood Poopy," we heard Jerome groan. "Do we have to do this now?"

"Unless you want me to let the cat out of the bag," a young girl's voice said, falsely innocent. "But if you want to buy my silence, here's a list of my demands."

There was a rustling of paper as she presumably handed a list of some sort to Jerome.

"Same time tomorrow," she told him. "Pleasure doing business with you, Clarke."

We heard scraping as a chair was moved. Mick and I jumped back and a moment later a girl who looked like she was probably is one of the younger grades came through the door. She didn't even look at us, but quickly disappeared down the hall.

I poked my head through the doorway just in time to see Jerome, who was sitting on a desk, run his hand through his hair.

"What was that all about?"

He looked up at me, surprised.

"You know me," he said after a moment. "What's life without a few year sevens to terrorise?"

"It sounded more like she was terrorising you," I pointed out. He ignored me, standing up and leaving the room. I turned around and together the three of us made our way to the drama room.

We stopped in the doorway and silently looked into the room. Patricia was sitting to the side slightly awkwardly as Nina sobbed into Fabian's shoulder. Joy kept shooting glances at Nina, somewhere between annoyed and jealous.

The three of us watched as Nina stood up and wiped her eyes. "I'm going back to the house guys. See you later."

Picking up her bag she left the room, avoiding looking at us as she passed. Jerome, Mick and I tried to act casual, as if we'd just arrived.

"I'm sure she just wants to be alone," Joy told Fabian as the two of us entered. "Give her some space."

"What happened?" I asked, sitting down.

Nobody replied for a moment.

"Nina's just upset," Patricia told me eventually.

I nodded in understanding. "It is all a bit overwhelming, isn't it?"

There was a chorus of agreement from my housemates before everyone once again fell silent.

"So what do we have next?" I asked, trying to make conversation.

"Biology," Jerome told me, and as if on cue the bell rang.

"Let's get this over with," Patricia groaned, and we all picked up our bags and headed to class.

 **Thanks for reading guys, you're all amazing. See you on Tuesday!**

 **-Bobbi**


	6. Chapter 6

**Sorry for the long wait guys, my internet's been stuffing around all week. I thought I posted this chapter on Tuesday, but when I came back to post another chapter today I realised it wasn't up yet. I'll post the next one tonight seeing as it's already written.**

 **I do not own House of Anubis.**

 _Nina's POV_

I managed to hold back most of the tears until I got back to the house. I hurried through the corridors of the school, not daring to look any of the other students in the eye and trying not to think about the pain coming from my sprained ankle. I wasn't going to let them see me cry.

That was, after all, what they wanted: to get some gossip about their most recent talking points. I could almost hear their thoughts as I hurried past.

 _Is that Nina Martin?_

 _Wasn't she Amber Millington's best friend?_

 _Is she going to have anotherbreakdown?_

I went straight to my room as soon as I got back to the house. I shoved open the door with way too much force and threw my bag against the wall in the direction of Charlotte's bed.

"Ouch."

I looked back towards the sound in surprise.

"Sorry, I didn't see you there," I apologised to Charlotte, who I hadn't realised was sitting on her bed.

"It's fine," she told me, picking up my bag and holding it out for me to take. "Are you okay?"

I nodded, but she clearly didn't buy it.

"So what are you doing back here?" I asked, trying to distract her. "Class has probably already started."

"Trudy told me I could wag fifth," Charlotte explained. "I'm still getting over my jetlag."

"You want a tip?" I asked. Even though this was only my second year living overseas, I'd figured out a few good hacks.

She nodded.

"Try to start adjusting to the time zones while you're back in Australia. It makes it way easier when you get back over here, seeing as we have to start classes pretty much straight away."

"Thanks," she smiled at me, before frowning slightly. "So your home is still in America then?"

I laughed slightly. "If by 'home' you mean the place where I live while I'm not here, then yes. But after you've been here for a while, this place starts to feel more like home than where your family lives."

As I said that, I realised how little I actually knew about Charlotte. Apart from the fact that she was from Australia, I actually had no idea what her backstory was.

We sat in silence for a few moments before I decided to try and start up a friendly conversation.

"So what's your family like?"

Charlotte groaned slightly. "My family is seriously messed up, I swear."

"What do you mean?

She sighed. "Do you want to know the long version or the short version?"

"Long version," I replied confidently. To be honest I was feeling kind of bad for the way we'd been excluding Charlotte, so I decided I should get to know her better.

"You asked for it," she warned me. "Okay, so I've spent my whole life alternating between living with Mum and living with Dad. They divorced when I was only a toddler. I have a brother, Kyle, who's twelve months older than me. Mum's had three other husbands, and she's just divorced the last one. I have four half siblings on my mum's side: Alex, Lola, Jeremy and Patrick, all of whom live with Mum. My dad got remarried and he has three kids now, but they're all way younger than me. I've had many step siblings over the years, but I only keep in touch with Maya and Kelsey, who were from Mum's third marriage. At the moment Mum and Dad are in the middle of an ugly custody battle over who's responsible for Kyle and me. I couldn't stand it anymore, so I decided to come here."

"Wow," was all I could say when I realised she'd finished. "That is messed up."

Charlotte nodded, as if to say 'I told you so'.

"So how about you?" she asked.

I shrugged. "Not really much to tell, it's just me and my gran."

I could see that the question had crossed her mind, but she was too polite to ask it.

"My parents died in a car crash when I was young," I explained. "My gran brought me up."

"I didn't want to ask," she told me. "But thanks."

We sat in silence for a few moments.

"I am really sorry about this morning," I told Charlotte eventually. "How we left without you."

"It's fine," she shook her head. "Really, don't worry about it."

"I know what it's like," I sighed. "Being the new, foreign girl. "This is only my second year here, and I wasn't met by the most welcoming crowd either."

"But you're so close to everyone now," she pointed out, disbelieving.

"It wasn't always that way," I told her, laughing slightly. "When I first got here I was blamed for the disappearance of one of the old Anubis residents, especially by Patricia. Eventually she and everyone else realised it wasn't my fault though, and I managed to make some friends. That being said, I think we have Amber and her manner of dying to thank for how close we all are now."

Charlotte nodded slowly, yawning. This made me remember how tired I actually was, but I fought the urge to yawn as well.

"I'm gunna get some sleep," she told me eventually. "Thanks though, for everything. At least I know there's one person here who'll talk to me."

"The others will come round," I promised her. "They can seem a bit clique-y, but I think that's just the nature of private English boarding schools. They'll warm up to you before you know it."

Charlotte nodded and thanked me, so I decided to leave her alone to sleep.

"We should go into town some time," I suggested just before I closed the door. "Just you and me, a girls day out."

"I'd like that," Charlotte smiled as I left the room.

I didn't really have much to do, so I headed down to the kitchen to see if I could do anything to help Trudy out. I was feeling much better than I had been at lunchtime, but I wasn't going to go back to school.

The front door opened as I got to the bottom of the stairs.

"Fabian? What are you doing here?" I asked him as he closed the door behind him to keep the heat out.

"I just came to check on you," he told me. "You seemed really upset."

"I'm fine now," I promised. "But how did you convince Sweetie to let you out of class?"

"It was easy really," he shrugged, grinning at me in a way that made my heart skip a beat. "I just reminded him that after last year, he kind of owes us one. I also pointed out that we could go to the police at any time, you know, about the whole Elixir of Life thing."

I laughed slightly. "Skipping class and blackmail on the same day? Who are you, and what have you done with Fabian Rutter?"

He rolled his eyes. "There's something else we need to talk about. That little girl's voice in the attic, what do you think it was coming from?"

"I want to say another cylinder," I frowned. It _was_ the most logical explanation. "But the device to play them on isn't in the attic anymore, and besides, we would have heard him winding it up."

Fabian nodded slowly. "But the voice did sound like the one from the cylinders," he pointed out.

"I know," I sighed, my head spinning.

I was exhausted, to say the least. I hadn't dared to sleep for more than a few hours at a time over the past few nights for fear of waking Charlotte, and it was really starting to get to me.

"Are you okay?" Fabian frowned, concerned.

"I'm fine," I told him, but unfortunately he knew me way to well.

"You look exhausted, you should get some sleep."

I shook my head. "I'm fine, really."

He obviously didn't believe me, but decided to drop the subject.

"So what did the voice say again?"

I frowned, trying to remember. "Something about 'water of life' and 'tears of gold', and some 'book of old' that can be found in an… athenaeum?"

"So we know what 'water of life' means," Fabian said.

"Elixir," I nodded.

"And I don't know about 'tears of gold', but I'm pretty sure 'athenaeum' is a really old word for a library."

I nodded slowly, trying to take all this in.

"But if we assume the voice was from one of the cylinders, then the library we use wouldn't have even been built when it was recorded," he pointed out. His brain was working way too fast for me at that point in time. "But I think there's an old one on the grounds somewhere that's been boarded up for years. We could go check it out if you want."

I hesitated slightly. Did I really want to get involved?

"What's wrong?"

"I just… I'm not sure if I want to get involved in another mystery," I told him. "This whole 'Sibuna' thing was Amber's idea. It feels wrong doing it without her."

"We don't even know if there is another mystery," Fabian pointed out. "But if you don't want to find out, we don't have to go."

As much as I hated to admit it, I couldn't help myself. "You're right, it's probably not another mystery," I sighed. "But I think we have a duty to stop Victor from getting the Elixir."

"If you're sure," he frowned, obviously confused by my sudden change of heart.

"I'm sure," I nodded. "I'll just get my bag and then we can go."

By the time we left the last class of the day was well and truly finished. We passed the others on the way out.

"Where are you two off to?" Trudy asked, poking her head through the living room door.

"We're just going for a walk," I lied. "We needed some fresh air."

She frowned. "Are you sure it's a good idea to do that on that ankle of yours? You'd be better off staying back here and resting."

"I'm fine," I promised, contradicting myself as I put weight on my bad ankle and winced slightly.

"I don't think so," she frowned. "Come into the living room and sit down for a bit, we'll put some ice on it."

I tried to protest, but Trudy wouldn't hear of it. She led me into the living room, and I threw Fabian a glance over my shoulder, hoping he would interpret it as 'go without me'.

Trudy sat me down on the couch and went into the kitchen.

"Here you go," she came back a moment later and handed me some ice wrapped in a tea towel.

By this point the others had filed into the dining room and were snacking on the muffins Trudy had laid out on the table.

"Do you want one Nina?" Mara asked me.

I was about to say no, but then I realised that she had been there when I'd thrown away my lunch that day.

"Thanks," I nodded, so she handed me one.

"So what do you guys think of the newbie?" Patricia asked, leaning against the dining table.

"She seems nice enough," Mara shrugged. "She's quiet, that's for sure."

"I think that's probably because we're not really making an effort. I mean credit to you, you haven't accused her of kidnapping anyone yet," I joked, and Patricia looked slightly guilty. "But I still think we could all be trying a bit harder to make her feel included."

Mara laughed slightly. "We aren't the most welcoming crowd, are we? I mean, think about it. When Fabian first came, we made such a poor effort to be friends with him that he didn't talk to anyone for a fortnight. On Alfie's first day, none of us would talk to him because we were convinced he'd been in prison. When Nina arrived, Patricia accused her of kidnapping Joy. We really need to make more of an effort."

We all nodded in agreement. It was funny, but I'd always just assumed that everyone else had been at Anubis House since day one. I hadn't even thought that I might not have been the first new student.

Everyone started to branch off, going to do their homework or whatever else the people in that place did of an afternoon.

It was just after four o'clock by the time Fabian got back.

"Did you find anything?" I asked quietly, even though we were alone in the living room.

He glanced around nervously. "Victor and Mr Sweet were there," he told me. "And whatever they were looking for, it was already gone."

"So we're safe then," I sighed. "Well that's a relief. I guess we can just forget about this whole thing."

I wasn't actually sure how I felt about that fact that there was no mystery, nothing to be done to save the world. As much as I hated to admit it, I was almost disappointed.

While terrifying, putting your life in danger to save the world was actually kind of… fun.

Now that's not something I ever thought I'd say.

 **Thanks for reading guys! See you tonight.**

 **-Bobbi**


	7. Chapter 7

**Sorry guys, my internet's still playing up, so I could get this up until now. It literally cut out on Sunday afternoon and we're still trying to work out what's going on, so I'm posting this on the free wifi at McDonalds.**

 **Expect irregular updates for the next week or so until we can figure out what's going on. I'll post when I can, but I can't promise anything because who knows when I'll next have internet access.**

 **Because of the extra time I had I've been able to make this chapter a bit longer than it was originally, so enjoy!**

 _Patricia's POV_

It was only two days into the new term, and I had already come to the conclusion that I wasn't a morning person.

"Morning," I said sleepily as I entered the dining room, rubbing the sleep from my eyes as I sat down.

"Morning," everybody who was already at breakfast replied, which was the whole house except for Nina and Fabian.

I asked if anybody knew where they were.

"Probably upstairs somewhere making out," was Charlotte's reply.

We all looked at her in confusion.

She giggled. "Well…" she hesitated, as if contemplating whether or not to tell us something. "The other night I caught them sneaking up to the attic, and when I asked what they were doing… they told me that they were secretly dating."

Unlike everyone else in the room, I wasn't convinced. I had my own theories as to what the pair might have been doing in the attic.

"Hey guys," we all looked up in time to see Nina enter, followed closely by Fabian. I heard Mara giggle.

"What's going on?" Fabian asked slowly, confused.

"We were just talking about what we think Mr Winkler's replacement is going to be like," I said forcefully, daring anybody to contradict me.

As much as I supported 'Fabina', I knew that the pair was well and truly sick of being given a hard time. Unlike the others, I knew when a joke was being taken too far.

"I heard some kids from another class talking about her yesterday," Nina told us. "She sounds alright. But I guess we'll find out for ourselves, we've got thing-o first.

"Thing-o?" Charlotte raised her eyebrows.

"You know," Nina waved her arms around, trying to remember the word. "Um…English. No, wait… History."

"Drama?" I suggested.

"Yeah, that," she nodded, rubbing her eyes tiredly. She actually didn't look like she'd had a lot of sleep.

Looking around the room, I could tell I wasn't the only person concerned for Nina's wellbeing.

"Are you okay Nina?" Mara asked from her seat next to Mick.

"What? Yeah, I'm fine," Nina smiled, taking her normal seat at the head of the table and taking an uncharacteristically large pile of toast.

Once everybody had finished breakfast we made our way over to the school. Although nobody had actually said anything, it had kind of been agreed that we would all walk over together, which was something that hadn't happened before that term.

We were the first ones to get to the drama studio, so we immediately claimed the best chairs- the couches in the middle of the classroom. Over the next twenty minutes or so the rest of our classmates filtered in, the last arriving just as the bell went.

"Good morning everyone," a cheery voice said from behind us. We all spun around to come face to face with our new teacher. "My name is Miss Peterson, I'll be your Drama and History teacher for the foreseeable future."

Miss Peterson was very young –she'd probably only just finished university– and was quite short with curly blonde hair that went just past her shoulders. Her accent was a strange mixture between English and Scottish and she was smiling at us in a friendly manner.

"So I can get to know you all better I thought we'd go around in a circle and you can tell me your name and something about yourself," Miss Peterson announced. "I'll start. My name is Emily Peterson and I'm claustrophobic."

We went around the classroom in a clockwise direction, so I was the first of the Anubis residents to speak.

"My name's Patricia and my favourite band is Sick Puppies," I told the class, even though I'm pretty sure everybody already knew that.

Mara was sitting to my left. "I'm Mara and my favourite subject at school is Chemistry."

"My name's Mick and I like sports."

"I'm Jerome, my favourite movie is _Return of the Vampires_."

"I'm Charlotte and I'm a middle distance runner."

I saw Mick frown as she said this, as if he had just remembered something. Charlotte hadn't really struck me as the sporty type, but there you go.

"My name's Fabian and my favourite book is _The Solar System is Your Friend_."

Nina's eyes widened. She was next, but she just sat there numbly.

"Your turn," Miss Peterson told her encouragingly.

"Right," she nodded. "Um, I'm Nina, and…"

She trailed off, apparently unable to think of anything.

"You're American?" I suggested, but it came out much harsher than I had intended it to.

"Yeah. I'm from America."

This continued until the entire class had told everyone something.

"Excellent," Miss Peterson clapped her hands together. "Next up I thought we'd do some improvs. As you can see there are three boxes on the table over there, each filled with pieces of paper, which are your prompts. One is your location, one is your relationship to one another and one is an issue that has to occur during your scene. The only rule is that once you get your prompts, you have to stick with the. No swaps. Get into groups of three, please."

We did as we were told. I went to go in a group with Mara, only to discover that she'd quickly been snatched up by Mick and Jerome (the love triangle of the year).

"You can come with us if you want Patricia," Nina told me.

I thanked her and joined her and Fabian to form a group.

"Very good," Miss Peterson nodded. "Who wants to go first?"

Willow, a very… enthusiastic girl from Isis House, instantly thrust her hand into the air. Her group members groaned slightly as they made their way onto the stage.

Let's just say that the following two minutes of my life were ones I could never get back. Nobody volunteered to go next, and just our luck, Miss Peterson chose us.

Fabian grabbed our prompts and we turned our backs to the audience so we could read them.

"Alright," Fabian said. "We're best friends, we're at a school dance, and-"

He stopped short.

"And what?" Nina asked, leaning over to try and read the little piece of paper. Fabian quickly scrunched it up in his hand.

"Miss, we need to swap," Fabian turned around and spoke to the teacher, who shook her head.

"I told you, once you get your prompts you're stuck with them."

"You don't understand," he insisted, handing the little ball of paper to me so I could read it, which frustrated Nina. "We can't use these prompts."

I opened up the piece of paper and I couldn't believe my eyes.

 _Somebody dies._

"We really have to change," I agreed with Fabian. "I don't think any of us feel comfortable using this."

Why the hell she'd even put that one in I'd never know. Insensitive much?

"It's just a bit of fun kids," Miss Peterson told us. "We're all friends here, nobody's judging you."

That wasn't what we were worried about.

"Come on guys, it can't be that bad," Nina agreed, putting out her hand.

I looked over at Fabian, who nodded reluctantly.

Nina's attitude changed completely once she'd read what was on the piece of paper. She stared at it numbly for a moment.

"Are you actually kidding me?" she asked eventually. "Does the universe hate us or something?"

"Miss," Fabian insisted. "I really think we should-"

"I mean does somebody actually find this amusing?" Nina continued, becoming more and more hysterical. "Why just put some innocent school kids through hell when you can do it and rub their faces in it as well?"

The entire class was staring at Nina in shock. They'd never seen this side of her before. Admittedly, neither had I.

"There must just be someone up there who really doesn't like us. Well whatever we've done to annoy you, I'm sorry," she called towards the roof.

Fabian turned to Miss Peterson. "Maybe we could just swap?"

"No," Nina said forcefully. "Why should we get special treatment? You heard the rules. I'm so sick of everyone treating us like we're so damn fragile."

"Nina," Fabian was trying to calm her down, but to no avail.

"You know what?" she was close to tears now. "I don't even care. Do you hear me? Amber's dead and I don't even care! So you can stop this now, because you're not affecting me. At all."

With that she stormed off the stage. She was halfway towards the door when she literally collapsed.

Despite the fact that he was probably the furthest away, Fabian was the first to her side. The rest of the Anubis residents weren't far behind.

Poor Miss Peterson looked very overwhelmed. "Is she okay?" she asked in shock.

Anybody in their right mind should have been able to tell that Nina was not okay. She was in a heap on the floor, sobbing uncontrollably.

"I'll take her to the infirmary," Fabian offered, before adding, "Maybe after she calms down a bit."

Miss Peterson nodded in agreement and tried to continue the class, but we were no longer in the mood to work. I could just imagine my classmates secretly rubbing their hands together in glee, glad to have some more gossip about the 'Anubis six'.

I'm not kidding when I say that's what they'd been calling us. There were technically seven of us, but they never included Charlotte. I guess it _was_ unusual that there was so few of us. We'd always been a small boarding house anyway –I knew that Isis had ten and Hathor had at least twelve– but I didn't really get why our classmates constantly found the need to draw attention to the fact that our numbers had dropped so quickly.

Maybe Nina was right and the universe did just want to punish us.

We didn't see Nina or Fabian for the rest of the day. Our last class was Maths, and after it had finished we all walked as a group back to Anubis House.

Trudy was in the entrance hall when we arrived, talking to some old lady who had a fair amount of luggage with her. I wondered vaguely if she was another retirement home escapee, but I didn't really pay it much thought.

The group of us headed straight for the dining room where Trudy had laid out our afternoon tea. Fabian was sitting on the couch, reading a book.

"Where's Nina?" I asked him.

"Nice to see you to Patricia," he said, mock offended. "She's upstairs asleep. The nurse reckons she hasn't slept properly in weeks."

"I remember she was having nightmares at the end of last year," Mara recalled. For the last week of the previous term Nina had been sharing a room with us. Understandably she hadn't wanted to sleep alone in her old room. "Do you think she's still having them?"

I watched as Charlotte's eyes widened. "She is," she confirmed. "The other night she woke up screaming."

"How could I not have known this?" Fabian asked, clearly annoyed at himself. "I'm supposed to be her best friend. Why didn't she tell me? Why didn't she tell anyone?"

"I think it's pretty simple," I told him wisely. "If you want my opinion, Nina's feeling a bit unbalanced."

"How so?"

"Think about it," I reasoned. "Last term Nina had her guy best friend and her girl best friend. When she needed someone she could have deep conversations with or who she knew would keep her secrets, she went to Fabian. The only problem –and for the sake of this argument please don't protest Fabian– was that Nina couldn't tell Fabian absolutely everything, mainly because she has a major crush on him. Nina needed her girl best friend to go to when it came to things like that. Amber was able to give her advice on what clothes to wear, what to say and what not to say around the guy she liked, girly stuff like that."

"Is there any particular reason we're referring to Nina in the past tense?" Jerome piped up.

I shot him a glare. "So basically, now she only has a guy best friend. She has no one to confide all the rest of the stuff in. She's finding it hard because she has to keep half of her thoughts to herself," I finished.

Everyone stared at me for a moment.

"That was unusually deep of you, Patricia," Fabian told me eventually.

"I can be really deep at times," I defended myself.

"And I can be really girly at times," Jerome countered, mimicking something I had said the previous term. "With my bag full of girly things that girls use."

Only Fabian and I knew what he was talking about, everyone else was slightly confused and probably questioning Jerome's mental stability. Actually scratch that, while I wasn't confused, I was also questioning Jerome's mental stability.

"Inside joke," he explained when only Fabian and I reacted. "My humour is wasted on you guys."

Thinking about that night brought back painful memories that I had been trying to forget (not that I would ever admit it) so I decided it would be a good idea to change the subject.

"So who was that old lady that Trudy was talking to?" I asked.

"That's Nina's gran," Fabian told me.

We all looked at him, confused.

"Nina's gran?" Jerome confirmed. "The one who lives in America?"

"She's come for a surprise visit," he explained. "But her hotel flooded, so she'll probably be staying here for a few nights."

As if on cue, Trudy entered the living room at that moment, followed closely by Mrs Martin.

"Hello my lovelies," Trudy smiled at us before introducing our guest and explaining what Fabian had already told us.

"Where is that granddaughter of mine?" Mrs Martin asked brightly.

"Upstairs asleep," Fabian told her. "She's… had a rough day."

That was the understatement of the century, but nobody wanted to alarm Nina's gran by telling her exactly what had happened.

Eventually everyone began to branch off and do their own thing. I headed into the kitchen to confront Fabian, who appeared to be making sandwiches.

"So I was talking to Charlotte this morning," I told him casually.

"Oh?" he frowned, probably wondering what on earth that had to do with him.

"Yeah. She was saying she had some trouble sleeping the other night. Something woke her up."

Fabian's eyes widened in realization. "How many people has she told about that?"

"Only the whole house," I shrugged. "But unlike the others, I don't buy the whole 'we're secretly dating' act. If this has something to do with Sibuna, I want to help."

"We were just looking for a place to hide the Cup," he explained, anxiously glancing over my shoulder into the dining and living area.

"But you'd tell me, right? If something big happened?"

"Of course," he nodded, but I wasn't sure whether or not I really believed him.

 **Thanks for reading! Once again I'll do my best to post the next time I can get on the internet. See you then!**

 **-Bobbi**


	8. Chapter 8

**I'm back!**

 **So we now have a wifi modem that does what wifi modems are supposed to do (ie provide us with internet) which is more than I can say for our last one. Sorry for the wait for this chapter, but I'm now back in business!**

 **Also I realised as I was editing this chapter that there are quite a few differences between the American spelling of words and the spelling in Australia, where I'm from. For example, as I've just been typing, the word 'realised' came up as being spelt incorrectly.**

 **I know most of you are from America, but I'm going to continue to use the Australian spelling. This is what I've grown up with and it's too hard to try and change my habits now, I can tell you it would probably just end up with one big mess. I'm sorry for any confusion this might cause.**

 **Anyway, on with the story! As always, I don't own House of Anubis.**

 _Charlotte's POV_

"And therefore x is equal to seven," I wrote in the answer to the last question on my Maths homework and slammed my book shut. I groaned slightly as I looked at the rest of my pile of homework.

"Hey."

I turned around to see that… Mick, I think (I was still learning names) was standing in the kitchen.

"Hi?" I hadn't meant for it to come out as a question, but I wasn't exactly sure why he had randomly decided to start up a conversation with me.

I watched as Mick grabbed three bananas, peeled them and then began eating them all at once.

"You right there?"

"I've gotta get my energy up," was what I managed to decipher from the noises he made in my direction. He swallowed before telling me, "I'm going for a run."

"Can I come?" the question was out of my mouth before I could stop it. I was going to regret this later.

He looked at me sceptically. "No offence, but I'm the fastest 400 and 800m runner for my age in our county."

"And I'm the fastest 800 and 1500m runner for my age in the world," I argued while still trying to shrug it off like it was no big deal. "I think I'll be fine."

"Sure you are," Mick clearly didn't believe me. After a moment he realised I wasn't joking. "Seriously?"

"I'll go get my running shoes," I told him in reply, before adding, as an afterthought, "And maybe change. I'll be down in five, okay?"

I didn't wait for him to answer.

Half an hour later the pair of us were back at the house again, me panting slightly and Mick dripping in sweat.

"Your pace is insane," he groaned. I decided not to tell him that we'd only been going just faster than my warmup pace. "How often do you train?"

"When I was running I used to train eight times a week," I told him stiffly.

"When you were running?" he asked, confused

"I quit."

This hung in the air for a moment.

"So let me get this straight," Mick frowned eventually. "You work hard your whole life until you're finally the best in the world at something, and then you just quit?"

I didn't reply for a moment.

"It's a little more complicated than that," I told him coldly. "Being the best in the world at something isn't all it's cracked up to be."

"How so?"

To be honest, I hadn't exactly been planning on divulging my life story this early on.

"Let's just say that one girl's jealousy landed her with a lifetime suspension from all Athletics Australia events and me with several broken bones and six months of rehab. It kind of puts you off running, to be honest."

"Which bones did you break?"

"Mandible, right humerus, radius and ulna in both arms and a few ribs," I listed them, ignoring his glaringly obvious lack of tact. "It wasn't pretty."

"Doesn't sound like it," Mick scrunched up his face. "But at least you can still run, seeing as you didn't do anything to your legs or abdomen."

Actually I can tell you from experience that trying to run with several broken ribs was extremely painful. But that wasn't the point. The point was that running had caused all the pain I'd been put through. I wasn't going to let that happen again.

"Thanks for letting me run with you," I said quickly, making for the door. "We should do it again some time."

"Yeah," Mick nodded, his thoughts obviously elsewhere. I held the door open so he could follow me inside. We headed straight for the living room.

"And here's a picture of me with a really big buttress," we heard Nina's gran saying as we entered the living room.

"Now don't put yourself down," Jerome laughed, but his joke fell flat.

"Where have you guys been?" Mara looked up at Mick and I as we entered. The jealousy was evident in her voice.

"We went for a run," I told her, which surprisingly made her look _more_ annoyed.

"What?"

"Babe, relax," Mick headed into the kitchen, pecking his girlfriend on the lips as he passed. "It was just running. Did you know Charlotte's been to the Junior World Championships?"

From the look on Mara's face I could tell that I was very quickly making a new enemy, so I decided it would be a good time to leave the room.

I went upstairs and plopped down on my bed. Without anything better to do I decided to write in my diary.

 _Today I told someone about my running. Actually I kind of told everyone about my running, but only two people know exactly how good I was (and not the ones I had originally expected would be the first to find out). I went for a run this afternoon, and it felt good. I haven't properly run since the accident and that was almost seven months ago. As much as I hate to admit it, I've missed it._

 _In other news I'm slowly starting to be accepted here. Nina (my roommate) and I are getting on well and I had a pretty good chat to Mick today. I hope that one day soon these guys will accept me as part of their group._

 _Anyway, I'd better go. Nina's asleep at the moment (she had a full on breakdown in Drama class earlier, and only Fabian and Patricia know exactly what happened) so she needs her rest. So do I, come to think of it. Nina's prone to nightmares and they keep me up as well._

I closed the book and put it back under my pillow just as I heard Trudy call out that supper was ready. I was hungry after my run, so I hurried quickly downstairs.

I was the last one to arrive at supper and my seat was already taken by Nina's gran. As I sat down next to her I noticed that Nina's usual seat was occupied by Joy, the girl I sat next to in class on my first day.

"I thought you were staying in Isis House," I hadn't meant to sound so accusing, but that was how it had come out. But I had noticed that Joy was spending more time in Anubis House than some of the actual residents.

"I like it here," Joy said defensively. "Besides, I don't like the people at Isis, they're weird. You guys are way cooler."

"But didn't you specifically request to be moved to another house?" Mara clarified.

Joy didn't reply.

Apart from that, dinner was relatively uneventful. I'd almost gotten over my jet-lag, but I still went to bed pretty much straight away once we'd left the table.

The next morning we arrived in class to find Jerome hastily collecting something from the tables in our classroom.

"Is that a photo?" Mick asked as Jerome turned the piece of paper around so we could no longer see the front.

"Photo?" Jerome feigned naivety. "What photo?"

"Oh you know," Mick frowned. "The one you're holding and I'm… pointing to."

Jerome looked down at the photo, the alarm evident on his face.

"This is… a photo of my girlfriend," he told us eventually.

"You have a girlfriend?" Mara's voice was once again laced with that oh-so familiar jealousy. But why? Wasn't she dating Mick?

"She dumped me like a shoe," Jerome grimaced as he began to rip up the photo. "Can't stand the sight of her."

Rolling our eyes, the rest of us made our way fully into the classroom and took our seats. In the absence of Fabian and Nina (who had both been given the day off) I sat, alone, in the front row closest to the door.

We spent the lesson learning about parabolas, and I was relieved when the bell went and we were finally dismissed. Maths had never been my strong suit.

The class flooded into the corridor. A small crowd of students had gathered around something that was up on the wall.

"Is that Jerome?" I heard Mick ask.

I craned my neck to try and find out what they were talking about. Through the mass of bodies I could see a picture of what appeared to be a girl dressed up in a rather frilly dress. On closer inspection I realised that Mick was right- it _was_ Jerome.

"He makes a real pretty lady," Patricia observed with a smirk, and I realised it was the first time I'd actually seen her smile (if a smirk could really be counted as a smile).

"Yep," the cheery voice of a young girl could be heard over the rest of the chatter. "And there's plenty more where that came from. Here we have _my brother_ aged two, sitting on his potty," she held up a photo above her head. "And here we have Jerome crying on Santa's knee, aged _eleven._ "

I looked over towards Jerome. His eyes were wide with a mixture of shock, annoyance and embarrassment.

"Poppy!" he exclaimed.

"Oh hi Gerbil," the girl, Poppy, grinned before gesturing towards the photo on the wall. "Do you remember the time you dressed up as a girl?"

"They made me do it," Jerome insisted as all of our classmates laughed. "They made me do it, it was a school play." In one last desperate attempt to salvage his dignity (or whatever was left of it) he turned to me. "It's a kind of Christmas tradition here, Charlotte…"

"You keep telling yourself that," I patted him mock-sympathetically on the back.

"How come you never told us you had a kid sister?" Joy asked from her place next to Patricia. Both girls were leaning comfortably on the wall and smirking.

"Because I refuse to acknowledge she exists," Jerome told us through gritted teeth before turning to his sister. "Take it down now."

"Hey Charlotte," I turned around at the sound of my name to see Nina walking through the corridor.

"I thought you had the day off school," I frowned.

"I do," she gestured towards her clothes to highlight the fact that she wasn't in uniform. "I had to go see the councillor. She asked if I could come and get you."

"Me?" I asked, confused. There was a whole house full of kids whose friend had recently died. Surely the councillor had better things to do with her time than talk to me?

"Yeah," Nina nodded. "Don't ask me why, I don't know. I'm just the messenger. Anyway, she's set up in the room that's opposite the sick bay. You know where that is, right?"

"Not really," I admitted. The school was quite big and I would have been getting lost on a regular basis had it not been for the fact that I had classes with all of my housemates.

"That's okay," she told me. "I'll show you where it is."

I was vaguely aware of Mr Sweet telling Jerome off in the background as I followed her away.

 **Thanks for reading guys! Remember that I love reviews and they make me write faster!**

 **I'm currently in the middle of my last week of school for the year which means that the teachers have been dumping a heap of last minute assessment tasks on us, so the next chapter might take a few days. At the moment I'm aiming for Sunday.**

 **See you then!**

 **-Bobbi**


	9. Chapter 9

**Hi all!**

 **Another chapter as promised. This is a short one but I'll be uploading the next one tomorrow to make up for it.**

 **I don't own House of Anubis, in case you were wondering.**

 _Fabian's POV_

"Fabian sweetie," Trudy put her head around the door of the common room. I was sitting on the couch reading a book while I waited for Nina to come back from the school. "Would you be able to give me a hand lifting something?"

"Sure," I nodded, setting my book down on the coffee table and following her out of the room.

Sitting on the floor in the entrance area was a fairly large doll house which creepily resembled the very building we were standing in.

"Where did you find this Trudy?" I asked, running my hands over the intricate decorations.

"Upstairs in the attic," she told me. "I've been clearing it out to turn it into a guest bedroom."

At that moment the front door swung open and Nina burst into the room. She stopped short and looked between us, the fear evident in her eyes.

"I need to talk to you," she told me in a small voice.

I glanced at Trudy.

"Oh my, look at the time. I should really be getting a start on supper," our housemother announced. "If you two would be able to move that just outside so Victor can take it to the dumpster later that would be wonderful." With that she exited in the direction of the kitchen.

"Are you okay?" I asked Nina as soon as Trudy was out of earshot. "You look like you've seen a ghost."

"The weirdest thing just happened to me," she told me slowly.

"In what way weird?"

Nina glanced anxiously over her shoulder. "I was walking home from school, right, and then this creepy spirit lady appeared from nowhere and threatened me."

"Come again?"

"There was a ghost, Fabian. A real life, actual ghost!"

A year ago I wouldn't have believed that the words 'real life' and 'ghost' could go in the same sentence, but one elixir of life and two 95-year-old men who looked less than half their age later and I was willing to believe just about anything.

"Are you one hundred percent sure?" I asked. Not that I doubted Nina, but I knew for a fact that when people haven't had a lot of sleep they often hallucinated.

"Yes, I'm positive. She told me that I have to find some mask, or else she's going to kill me. Then she said something about tears of gold, and-"

"Nina, it's okay," I cut her off, she was getting hysterical. "Just calm down and we'll look at the facts, okay?"

She nodded and her breathing began to slow.

"Okay, so what do we know?"

"There was a ghost," Nina said. "And she told me that I have to find the… Mask of Anubis, or else I'll forfeit my life."

"And she wasn't any more specific about where you might find this mask?"

She shook her head.

"Look you've had a rough through months," I pointed out. "Maybe you just-"

"You don't believe me?" Nina asked, hurt.

"No, of course I believe you," I told her, but to be honest I wasn't really sure.

"You know what? You're probably right," she picked up on my uncertainty. "I'm probably just going crazy."

"No Nina, I-" I tried to talk but she cut me off again.

"It's fine Fabian," she said. "I probably just fell asleep or something and had a dream. I'm still really tired," she feigned a yawn. "We should move this for Trudy and then I'll go up to bed."

I wanted to say something else, but my brain went dead. Silently we went to pick up the doll house.

As soon as Nina's hands came into contact with it the windows lit up, like someone had turned on a light switch. She gasped in shock and withdrew her hands. Immediately the windows returned to darkness.

We looked at each other wide eyed, the same thought undoubtedly running though our heads.

 _What the hell was that?"_

"Did you press a switch or something?" I tried in vain to find a rational explanation for what had just happened and placed me hands where hers had just been. The dollhouse remained dormant. "Touch it again."

Nina complied, cautiously reaching out to put her finger on a different part of the dollhouse. Once again it lit up.

I was very quickly starting to think that maybe there was some truth in Nina's story about the spirit.

"Okay, that was weird," Nina voiced my thoughts.

"Very," I agreed.

At that point Trudy reappeared in the doorway.

"Trudy," Nina said sweetly. "I was wondering if maybe I'd be able to have this? I've always wanted a doll house, and this one is so beautiful."

"I don't see why not," Trudy frowned, obviously a bit confused. "Just so long as Charlotte doesn't mind keeping it in your room."

"I'm sure she'll be fine with it," I told her before turning to Nina. "I'll carry it up for you, okay?"

She looked like she was about to offer to help me, but I raised my eyebrows at her to remind her that that probably wouldn't be the best idea.

After taking the dollhouse up to her and Charlotte's room, Nina and I watched TV in the common room. About an hour later our housemates arrived back home, and a short while later Nina's gran returned from her day's worth of sightseeing.

"Hey Gran," Nina got up to hug her. "How was London?"

"It was amazing," Evelyn replied. "I never realised that Big Ben was so…well, big!"

We spent the rest of the afternoon politely looking at her photos, all 873 of them (how one woman could take that many photos in one day I would never know). We were almost relieved when Trudy announced that supper was ready.

 **Thanks for reading, you guys are all amazing! Please take a few moments to hit that little review button and tell me what you think.**

 **Like I said the next chapter will be up tomorrow, and I can promise lot's of drama. As in lots and lots.**

 **Can't give too much away though. You'll just have to wit til then!**

 **-Bobbi**


	10. Chapter 10

**Hey guys!**

 **I hope you're ready for some drama, cause I've got plenty of it. Maybe too much... tell me what you think.**

 **Unfortunately in the 24 hours since I last posted I haven't been able to secure the ownership of House of Anubis, just in case you were wondering.**

 **See you at the bottom!**

Mara's _POV_

I looked at my watch and frowned. Mick had left to go for a run after supper and he still wasn't back. Usually I wouldn't have worried, but once again he was out running with _Charlotte_.

I originally hadn't minded Charlotte, but now I wasn't so sure. She and Mick had _heaps_ in common, and I knew it wouldn't be long before she tried to steal him from me, just like Amber had.

"Do you think Mick and Charlotte would make a good couple?" I turned to Patricia. We were sitting on the dining table doing our biology homework (or should I say I was doing my homework and she was copying the answers).

Patricia frowned and looked at me. "Why are you asking if I think your boyfriend would look good with someone else?"

I sighed and rubbed my temples. "I just… they've been spending a lot of time together."

"They've been running twice," she pointed out. "I really don't think you've got anything to worry about."

"Still…"

"Look," she sighed. "If you're so worried, why don't you just ask him?"

That was actually a really good idea. "You're right," I nodded. "I think I'll do that."

We went back to our homework. About ten minutes later I heard the front door open and Mick and Charlotte's laughter echoed through the house. Immediately I felt the jealousy bubble up inside me.

Mick entered the common room but Charlotte wasn't with him.

"How was your run?" I asked coldly.

Beside me I felt Patricia collect her books and leave the room.

"Good?" he was clearly confused by my tone.

"And how's Charlotte?"

Immediately his face cleared. "Are you jealous? Of me and Charlotte?"

"Why? Is there something to be jealous of?" this line made me think back to the previous year before we had started dating. I'd been jealous that he was training with Miss Robinson and almost gotten her fired and him expelled.

There had been nothing going on then, so why should there be something going on now?

 _But this is different,_ I reminded myself. _The idea of Miss Robinson and Mick was ridiculous, but him and Charlotte… not so much_.

"Why don't you trust me?" apparently Mick had remembered that occasion as well. "If I say that nothing's going on, why can't you just believe me instead of making such a big deal of things?"

"I'm making a big deal of things?" I asked, properly annoyed now. "Don't I have a right to be concerned when you keep going off with some other girl? I thought I was supposed to be your training partner."

"Just because you're my girlfriend doesn't mean you get to control my whole life," he pointed out. Typical Mick, thinking I wanted to control him. Maybe if he had two brain cells to rub together he might be able to look after himself. "I am allowed to have other friends you know."

"I never said you weren't. I just like to know what you're doing."

"What are you, a stalker?" he was annoyed now. "You don't own me Mara."

With that he stormed off to his room, leaving me alone as I sobbed silently.

About half an hour later I decided to make my way up to my room. I left the common room to find Mick and Charlotte chatting in the hallway just outside Mick's room.

I stopped short and glared at them. It was a few moments before Mick noticed me. He glared right back at me, and after a minute Charlotte turned around to see what he was looking at. We faced off for a few minutes before Mick did the last thing I expected him to do.

He kissed Charlotte.

On the lips.

I turned away to hid the hot tears that were running down my face and hurried up the stairs. I knew it! There had been something going on between them!

The next morning I was the second last person down to breakfast, the only exception being Charlotte. I immediately noticed the tension in the air. I'm not joking when I say that it was so thick you could have cut it with a knife. Everyone was completely silent and they kept shooting angry glares at Mick, who looked up and glared at me when I entered.

There were two empty seats left at the table, one next to Mick and the other between Joy and Jerome. As I sat down next to her I vaguely wondered why Joy was eating breakfast with us when she was supposed to be in Isis House, but to be honest I had bigger things on my mind.

At this point Charlotte entered the room. She looked around for a moment, her eyes landing on the only empty seat, which as I mentioned before, was right next to Mick. I was annoyed to see a look of _sympathy_ pass over Nina's face as she looked at her roommate. Without a word the dirty blonde got up and moved, leaving her seat for Charlotte.

This immediately annoyed me. Only the night before Nina had been comforting _me_. Why was she in Charlotte's side now?

"Jerome, could you pass the juice?" Patricia asked sweetly. I had to work hard not to grin- I could see exactly where this was going and for once I didn't care.

Either Jerome hadn't realised what was going on or didn't mind, because he passed Patricia the jug without hesitation.

Within seconds its contents were all over Charlotte.

"Patricia!" Fabian and Nina exclaimed in unison.

Charlotte stood up in shock, wiping the liquid off her now sopping clothing. With one last glance around the able she left the room.

I served myself some cereal trying to avoid looking at my housemates. Suddenly Mick scraped back his chair and stood up.

"Erm… I have an announcement to make," he told us. "My family's decided to relocate… to Australia. I'm going with them."

There was a shocked silence, but he was only watching me.

"Australia?" I echoed numbly. "But that's… on the other side of the world."

"That is the basis of its appeal," he said coldly before pushing his chair in. "Anyway, I'm going for a run."

He quickly left the room. Breakfast continued in an awkward silence.

"You know she has a boyfriend," Nina said eventually.

"And does he know that she's going around kissing other boys?" I asked coldly.

"She was really upset last night," she insisted. "Mick definitely kissed her, not the other way round."

"Upset that she kissed him, or upset that she got caught?"

Nina huffed in annoyance. "Listen Mara, none of us are denying that Mick did the wrong thing. But you can't blame Charlotte in any of this.

"And what if she'd kissed Fabian? How would you have felt then?" I countered.

She just stared at me for a moment. "That's different," she pointed out eventually. "Fabian's not my boyfriend."

"Oh please," I scoffed. "Charlotte told us all about how you two go on secret attic dates. I don't know why you're standing up for her, she can't keep a secret."

"That was a joke," Fabian interjected calmly. "Charlotte knows that now. We were just messing with her."

"Exactly," Nina continued. "And therefore it is different. But that's beside the point. You can be angry at Mick all you like, we all are, just leave Charlotte out of it."

I was tired of arguing, so I just got up and left the room, my half eaten bowl of cereal still on the table.

I didn't go to school though. I was annoyed, and I needed to channel this.

I headed up to Nina and Charlotte's room, a revenge plan forming in my mind. Everyone thought I was sweet an innocent…and I was. Just not to people who tried to steal my boyfriends.

Charlotte's laptop was on her bed, and easy target. I picked it up and sat against the door so nobody could get in before opening it up. She didn't even have a password on it, so soon I had opened up her Skype and was searching though her call history.

The person she had spoken to most frequently was some guy called Angus, so I clicked on the call button and waited patiently as it rang.

"Hello?" I heard a male voice. Its owner's face soon appeared on the screen. "Oh. Hi."

"Hey," I said. "I'm Mara. You're Charlotte's boyfriend, right?"

"Um… yeah?" he seemed very confused. "What's up?"

"I just thought I'd give you a bit of an update of what's been going on around here."

"Um… okay."

"Well more specifically, I just thought I should tell you about what happened between my boyfriend… sorry, _ex-_ boyfriend, and you're girlfriend last night."

Angus frowned.

"I caught them kissing," I told him bluntly. "Just thought I'd let you know."

With that I hung up, leaving him to contemplate the information I had just given him.

 **Oh Mara, what have you done?**

 **Hope you guys enjoyed the chapter! If you did,** ** _please_** **post a review, they mean so much to me.**

 **Next chapter should be up on Thursday. See you then!**

 **-Bobbi**


	11. Chapter 11

**Hi all!**

 **I'm back with another chapter. Hope you enjoy it!**

 **As per usual I don't own House of Anubis.**

 _Nina's POV_

Everything was falling to pieces, and I could do nothing but watch. I felt bad for Mara, I felt bad for Charlotte, and I even sort of felt bad for Mick in a weird kind of way. I'd heard that Mara could get very jealous and insecure, which was probably what started this whole thing. I knew for a fact that Charlotte only liked Mick as a friend.

But where did Mick stand?

In all honestly this was the last thing we needed. I could see that teams had already started to form, but so soon after Amber's death we needed to be supporting each other, not arguing. My BBF would have known what to do, but she was on the other side now.

"You okay?" I heard Fabian ask from behind me. I'd been waiting in the entrance area while he was getting his books.

"So much drama," I groaned. "It's doing my head in!"

"I know what you mean," he agreed. "Poor Charlotte, poor Mara. Mick can be an idiot sometimes."

I was about to reply when somebody cut me off.

"Hey Fabes!" Joy called from the top of the stairs. I groaned inwardly. "Want to walk over to school together?"

Fabian looked from her to me and then back up at her.

"Actually Joy, I-"

"Great, I'll just get my bag. It's in Patricia's room," she grinned before disappearing again.

"Yeah, _great_ ," I said sarcastically. I knew it would be rude to leave now though, so we had to wait. "All three of us, together…finally."

I thought I saw Fabian glance apologetically in my direction, but I wasn't sure. Maybe he _wanted_ Joy to walk over with us. I knew that although they hadn't been dating, Joy had had a thing for Fabian before she had left. What if he had liked her too?"

I shook my head, trying to get rid of that thought. I didn't want to do a Mara.

Besides, Fabian and I weren't dating. He was entitled to like anyone he wanted to.

Joy came back downstairs and the three of us made our way over to the school together. Joy was clutching Fabian's arm, and I couldn't help but feel like he was actually enjoying the attention.

 _Don't be jealous Nina_ , I reminded myself. _Look where it got Mara_.

We finally dropped Joy when we got to school- she hurried straight over to Patricia.

"Hey, can you hold my bag while I go to the bathroom?" I asked Fabian.

He nodded, so I handed it to him before going into the girls' toilets.

I'd just finished doing my business when I heard the door open.

"But what does he see in her?" I heard Joy's voice and instinctively tried to be as quiet as possible. "I mean apart from the fact that she's… really pretty."

"Not to mention the mystical champion of good," Patricia added. There was a short silence. "Sorry Joy. I mean… they just have loads in common."

"Oh yeah? Well from now on, I'm going to have loads in common with Fabes too," she resolved.

I could almost hear Patricia rolling her eyes as they left the bathroom.

It didn't take a genius to figure out who they were talking about.

Our first class of the day was biology. Fabian, Joy and I shared a workstation, with Joy sitting in the middle and Fabian and I sitting on either side. I decided not to let this bother me.

"Before we begin," Mr Sweet entered the classroom followed closely by Victor. "I have an important announcement to make. Our school has been asked to present an official bid to host a prestigious exhibition."

"Yes," Victor added. "The touring _Treasures of Egypt._ It is absolutely imperative that we win."

"I need volunteers to help us prepare the bid," Mr Sweet told us, clicking his pen.

Fabian put his hand up and I was close behind. Joy glanced at us before also raising her hand.

"Alright, Fabian, Joy, Nina," he wrote our names down.

"We make a good team, don't we Fabes?" Joy grinned, clutching Fabian's arm. I glared at her. "Must be all that stuff we have in common."

"First meeting is at five o'clock this afternoon in the Frobisher Library. Thank you," with that Victor exited the room, leaving us to our biology.

There was something Victor wanted in that exhibition, I could tell.

That evening Fabian, Joy and I made our way over to the Frobisher Library, and I was beginning to feel more and more like a third wheel. The pair of them walked slightly ahead while I dragged behind, partly because my ankle was still a bit sore and partly because I was just plain annoyed.

"This is where we propose to host the exhibition," Mr Sweet announced once everyone had arrived. "We were thinking something along the lines of some photographs, and maybe a speech about the history of the estate."

"Shouldn't it be something a bit more dynamic?" Joy asked distastefully. "Like a film?"

To be honest that was actually a pretty good idea. Mr Sweet's suggestion had been a bit boring.

"We haven't got the money for that kind of thing," he said.

"I'm sure we can reallocate some funds," Victor protested.

Mr Sweet thought for a moment. "Yes… well I suppose a movie is quite a good idea," he straightened his bow tie.

Joy grinned proudly and clutched Fabian's arm. This time he didn't shrug her off like all the others.

I looked determinedly in the other direction.

"Fabes and I could look after it," Joy suggested. "We're really good together."

"Nina could help too," Fabian offered a small smile in my direction.

"It's okay," I grimaced slightly. I knew where I wasn't wanted.

Once Victor and Mr Sweet had finished talking we were given some time to just wander around the library. Joy and Fabian went off together so I went up to the first floor to do some research of my own.

"Hey," I turned around to see that Fabian had finally detached himself from Joy. "Look what I managed to convince Sweetie to lend us." He produced a catalogue. "I reckon Victor's interested in something in this expo, and this contains every item in it."

"Great minds think alike," I laughed. "I figured Victor must be after something too."

I went back to the book I had been flicking through. Something on one of the pages caught my eye.

"Fabian, look at this," I pointed to the picture of an intricately decorated mask. " _The_ _mask_ _of_ _Anubis was a mythical mask worn by the high priest of Anubis, the god of death. Legend has it that when worn at the funerals of pharaohs the mask would weep… tears of gold_ ," I read aloud. Finally some proof that I wasn't going crazy! "Now do you believe me? How could I have known any of this?"

Suddenly I heard a woman's voice. She was muttering indistinctly, but every now and again I was able to pick up a few words. _Find it… tears of gold…Chosen One…_

"What is it Nina?" Fabian asked, the concern evident in his voice. "What's wrong?"

"This is it," I told him, everything suddenly becoming very real. "My life really is in danger."

I was kind of spooked, so I decided to excuse myself early. Victor had a little rant about how he demanded 'total commitment', but after a quiet conversation with Mr Sweet (which I'm sure heavily featured the words 'Amber' and 'Millington') he said that I was allowed to go.

I headed back to the house alone and went straight up to my room. When I opened the bedroom door I was greeted by the sound of Charlotte's sobs.

"Are you okay?" I asked gently, making her jump slightly.

She quickly sat up and dried her eyes.

"Yeah, I'm fine," she smiles weakly. "Just… allergies. Do you guys have rabbits?"

I couldn't help but laugh. "Sorry, but I already tried to play the allergy card," I told her. "Back on my first day, right after Patricia upended a pitcher of water into my lap. It didn't work on Fabian either."

"Speaking of which," Charlotte frowned, probably trying to change the subject. "What's the deal with you two? One minute I think you're dating, the next you're not…"

I contemplated for a moment. I really needed someone to rant to.

"I'll do you a deal," I told her. "I'll tell you that if you tell me why you're crying. "

I didn't take a genius to figure out that it had something to do with the weird love triangle (that may or may not have even existed) that was going on between Mick, Charlotte and Mara.

"Okay," Charlotte nodded. She opened up her laptop and slid it towards me.

 _Your new boyfriend's ex told me what you did._

 _I can't believe you would do this to me._

 _We're so over._

The name at the top of the screen read _Angus Porter_.

"I just… I don't get it," she sighed. "I don't like Mick, not I that way. He just kissed me randomly, out of the blue, and now everyone's treating me like I did something wrong."

"Trust me, it'll blow over," I promised. "Besides, Mick told us this morning that he's leaving soon. His family's moving to Australia."

"Of course they are," she groaned. "Off to my home country."

I patted her on the back sympathetically. "Australia's a pretty big place isn't it? The chances of him living anywhere near you are next to none."

"You're right," Charlotte agreed, brightening up a little. "Anyway, it's your turn."

I sighed. "Okay, here goes. Fabian and I have never actually dated," I told her. "We only told you that because we couldn't tell you the real reason we were in the attic… which I still can't tell you, I'm sorry. But the truth is that I do actually like him as more than a friend, and last year I thought he liked me too. Now Joy's back, and… I just don't know anymore."

Charlotte nodded slowly. "If you want my advice, I reckon he does like you," she told me. "The way he looks at you is really cute, and he'll practically do anything for you. To be honest I think Joy kind of annoys him."

I nodded, but I wasn't convinced. Was she just saying that to make me feel better?

 **Thanks for reading and please review!**

 **Next chapter should be up Saturday. See you then!**

 **-Bobbi**


	12. Chapter 12

**Hey guys!**

 **Sorry for the late update, I was unexpectedly busy these last few days and didn't have much time to write.**

 **Hope you enjoy the chapter!**

 **As always I don't own House of Anubis.**

 _Jerome's POV_

Am I a horrible person for saying that the fact that Mara and Mick were arguing made me incredibly happy? Not to mention the fact that Mick was about to leave our lives forever and Mara would be free and single again.

As much as I hated to admit it, I really liked Mara. But of course Mick had had first pick, just like always. Well now it was my turn, I was finally going to get the girl.

"Hey Jerome," Mara plopped moodily into the seat next to me. It was recess and I was sitting alone in the drama room.

"Hey," I nodded. "How'd you go in the French test?"

Admittedly it wasn't the best conversation starter, but anything else I could think of would have been insensitive to her current situation.

"Alright," she shrugged, which is Mara code for 'I totally aced it'.

"You deleted all my photos!" I heard an angry voice from behind me. Groaning I turned around to face my sister.

What really had she expected me to do after she'd put embarrassing pictures of me up all over the school?

"I had to take action," I defended myself.

"You're evil," Poppy exclaimed. "Those photos are mine."

"Why do you even want photos of me on your phone anyway?" I asked.

She hesitated. "I… like them."

Okay, so I'll admit that was kind of sweet. Weird, but sweet. I wasn't going to let her know that though.

"Loser," I muttered, earning a small whack from Mara.

"They remind me of when they were taken," Poppy explained, suddenly very vulnerable. I felt kind of bad. "Like my dance recital. Mum dodged it, but… you came."

I sighed in resignation. "I've got the photos stored on my laptop, you can have them back. Well, most of them," I added as an afterthought, shuddering slightly as I thought about some of the images she had on there.

"And the letter?" she asked hopefully.

"Don't push it Poopy," I warned her. Sighing, she picked up her bag and left the room.

"Why do you have to be so mean?" Mara turned to me once she was out of earshot. "Poppy just wants to read it. She has a right to, she is your sister."

I knew that if Mara kept arguing she was going to make me change my mind. The girl had me wrapped around her little finger, not that she knew it.

"I'm pretty sure she's a robot sent from the future to ruin my life," I protested.

She frowned at me in disapproval. "Please? For me?"

And there were the puppy dog eyes. I sighed in defeat.

"Jaffray, I can deny you nothing," I groaned. "Okay, she can see it."

Mara hugged me and got up to leave.

"But Mara," she turned around to face me. "Do not be taken in by her. Remember, I trained this girl myself."

She rolled her eyes as she turned and left the room.

The general mood at dinner that night was still very tense. Joy was eating dinner in her own house (for once) but the table was still full with the addition of Nina's gran.

"You guys are all very quiet," Mrs Martin observed. "Have they been working you too hard over at that school?"

We all looked at each other, but Nina was the only one to say anything.

"Something like that."

Nobody contradicted her, so the dinner continued in an awkward silence.

"So Mick, when do you leave?" I asked eventually, partially trying to make conversation but mostly just trying to rub it in his face.

"A week," he replied grimly. "Just one more week and then you'll never have to see me again. I reckon some people will be glad to see me go."

 _More like all people._

Once again we returned to silence. The table slowly cleared as everyone finished eating, and soon the only people left other than me were Fabian and Mrs Martin.

"So Fabian," the old lady turned to talk to him. "Do tell me, what's the deal with you and my granddaughter?"

I had to hide the smirk on my face as Fabian froze, his fork halfway up to his mouth.

"I don't know what you mean."

"I'm a little too old and a little too wise to believe that one," she chuckled slightly. "Now have you two got a thing for each other or what?"

He just sat there so I took the liberty of replying for him. "Well I can tell you that it certainly isn't the 'or what'."

"Jerome!" Fabian protested. "I can tell you most definitely that we fall into the 'or what' category."

"You keep telling yourself that," I nodded.

He just groaned in exasperation and left the room in a huff.

Teasing Fabian was way too much fun.

 **Sorry it's so short, like I said I've been super busy. I hope you enjoyed it and please review!**

 **Next update won't be until Saturday, I'm sorry. I'm going away for a few days and I won't have any wifi (or any chance to write).**

 **See you then!**

 **-Bobbi**


	13. Chapter 13

**I'm back!**

 **Thank you for waiting so patiently for this chapter, I know it's been almost a week. I hope you enjoy this, and please review!**

 **I don't own House of Anubis.**

 _Fabian's POV_

As soon as I saw Nina the next morning I knew something big had happened. I had been sitting eating my breakfast with Mara and Jerome when she had appeared in the doorway. She hadn't entered or said anything, but she didn't have to. The look in her eyes said it all.

I got up and followed her out of the dining room and into the boy's corridor. Glancing anxiously over her shoulder, she silently pulled me into the bathroom.

"Are you okay?" I asked her, slightly confused.

Nina locked the door before pulling up her sleeve to reveal what appeared to be a tattoo. "Look what the spirit gave me."

I stared at it wide eyed. "What? But… how?"

"I had this really weird dream," she explained. "Only it wasn't a dream. I mean it was, but… it felt _so_ real. She said 'you can't ignore me forever' and 'ask the one who knows', and then she grabbed my arm and-" she gestured to the jackal-shaped mark on her arm, becoming borderline hysterical.

"Calm down," I told her. "It's going to be alright."

"But what does it mean?" she asked me. "And what-"

"Is that a girl in there?" we heard Victor's voice from the other side of the door.

We looked at each other wide eyed.

"No, of course not," I called back. "It's just… my music player. I like to listen to music while I… get dressed. It helps me relax."

I could see that Nina was trying not to giggle.

We heard Victor hesitate, as if trying to evaluate the truth in my statement. "Very well then," he replied eventually, apparently deciding to give me the benefit of the doubt. "But please hurry up Mr Rutter, you don't have all day."

With that we heard him walk away. Once we were sure it was safe I opened the door and we made our way into the dining room and sat down to have breakfast.

A few moments later Patricia appeared in the doorway. She stood just inside the room with her arms crossed.

"Fabian, Nina, my room. _Now_."

Jerome failed miserably in his attempt to stifle his snicker. "Sorry Trix, but that sounded really suggestive."

She just rolled her eyes as we followed her out of the room and upstairs. Once we were inside her and Mara's room she closed and locked the door.

"So guys, what's going on?" she raised her eyebrows at us.

I immediately remembered the promise I had made to her and felt bad for breaking it.

"What do you mean?" Nina asked, feigning confusion.

"Did you know that when you stand in the girls' bathroom you can hear _everything_ that's being said in the boys' downstairs?" Patricia asked. "I think it's something to do with the pipes."

"Oh," realisation dawned on Nina's face. "No actually, I didn't know that. Thanks for the heads up."

Patricia raised an eyebrow at her.

"Fine," she sighed in defeat. "There's kind of another mystery."

Nina went on to explain everything we knew so far, with Patricia nodding and interjecting with questions along the way.

"So we have to find this mask, or else Nina's going to die?" Patricia fairly accurately summarised everything that Nina had spent a good ten minutes explaining into one sentence.

"Yeah," I nodded. "But we don't exactly know where we're supposed to start looking. Like Nina said, this spirit lady isn't exactly the most helpful of people."

Patricia nodded slowly, taking all this in.

"Anyway," I sighed. "We'd better get to class. We've got English first, and Mrs Andrews will have our heads if we're late."

"You're right," Nina agreed, picking up her bag and standing up as Patricia and I did the same.

The three of us walked over in silence, probably contemplating what would be our next step in this whole Egyptian mystery. I couldn't help but worry about Nina.

Her best friend had died only a few months earlier, she didn't need this adding to her stress.

Nina and I took our usual seats, while Patricia sat behind us. The seat next to her remained empty until Joy entered and sat down, and not a moment later Mrs Andrews began the class.

"Oh Joy, I have that CD for you," she said once she'd set the lesson's work. "You can get it off me after class."

Oh no, I'd completely forgotten about this movie thing. Joy had assigned me to be the camera operator while she was the director, meaning that we were going to have to spend a lot of time together. That thought made me shudder.

"Thanks Mrs Andrews," Joy grinned before turning to me. "So do you want to listen to it tonight Fabes?"

Some people are blessed with the ability to politely turn down an offer they don't want to accept. Unfortunately I was not one of those people.

"Sure," I nodded, too nice to say no. I really had to do something about that…

"Cool. It's a date," she announced brightly.

I thought I saw Nina scowl, but I couldn't have been sure. She had been acting strangely for the last day or so, but why would that have been?

"Only not really a date," I pointed out, not wanting to give Joy the wrong idea. I liked her as a friend, and the last thing I wanted to do was hurt her.

"You know what I mean," she shrugged, grinning at me.

The rest of the class passed relatively smoothly and soon it was time for recess.

Nina and I sat in the drama room doing our best do discuss anything but the weird stuff that was once again going on. Part way through our conversation about the American political system (I was getting desperate, okay?) when Patricia approached us looking very pleased with herself.

" _The Book of Isis_ ," she announced, sitting down next to Nina.

"The what?" I looked at her, confused.

" _The Book of Isis_ ," she repeated. "That's what Victors so desperate to get his hands on."

Nina and I shared a glance.

"And you know this how?" I asked

"I overheard Victor talking to Sweetie. That's what he wants, believe me."

Nina nodded slowly. "That must be the book of old."

"The book of what now?" Patricia asked.

"The book of old," she repeated. "It's complicated. Anyway, did you find out anything else?"

"This book," she said. "Victor reckons it hold the answer to the Elixir of Life."

"Of course it does," Nina groaned. "And you know what? The Mask of Anubis is probably hidden inside as well. That would be just our luck."

I put a comforting hand on her shoulder. "It's going to be okay Nina. Actually, I was thinking maybe we should go and see my uncle during lunch tomorrow to find out if he knows anything about the mask."

She nodded slowly. "That's not actually a bad idea, but I can't do tomorrow."

"Why not?" I asked, confused.

"I'm going into town with Charlotte tomorrow," she explained, only confusing me even more.

"How did you convince Trudy to let _both_ of you take the day off school to go shopping?" I asked incredulously.

She shrugged. "I guess being classed as 'emotionally unstable' has its advantages. Anyway, I'm having dinner with Gran after school tomorrow because it's her last night, so it'll have to be sometime today. We could go tonight."

I nodded. "Sounds good."

"Oh, wait," Nina frowned. "I forgot, you have your date with Joy tonight,"

"It's not a date," I told her, confused by her harsh tone. "We're just-"

"-Listening to the music for the bid, I know," she sighed. "So we'll have to go at lunch, is that okay?"

"Yeah, that's fine," I told her. "Do you want to come Patricia?"

To be perfectly honest, I was glad when she said that she didn't. It wasn't that I had anything against Patricia, it was just that Nina had been acting kind of distant recently, and I wanted to find out why.

"Alright then," I nodded. "Lunchtime it is."

 **Thanks for reading! Next chapter will be up on Tuesday. See you then!**

 **-Bobbi**


	14. Chapter 14

**Back again!  
**

 **Here's a new chapter, hope you enjoy!**

 **I still don't own House of Anubis.**

 _Nina's POV_

At lunchtime Fabian and I left school to go and visit his uncle's antique store.

"Are you okay Nina?" he asked me as we waited at the bus stop for the next service.

"Yeah, I'm fine," I replied, confused. "Why?"

"I dunno," he shrugged. "I just thought maybe I did something to upset you. You've been acting kind of… distant lately."

I don't really know why this annoyed me, but it did. "To be honest, I think I have a right to be at least a little upset," I bit back. "You know, with the whole 'my best friend killing herself' and all."

He looked taken aback and slightly offended, which immediately made me feel bad.

"Sorry," I sighed, shaking my head. "I'm just… sorry."

"It's fine," Fabian told me. " _I_ should be the one saying sorry. I didn't think."

"So what do you reckon about this whole Egyptian curse thing?" I asked him, trying to change the subject.

"I think we just need to find this mask and get it over with as soon as possible so that nothing bad happens to you," he said.

I had to admit, he was kind of cute when he got all determined and protective over me.

Not that I'd ever admit it, of course.

At that moment the bus arrived so we had to drop the subject. It was too risky to continue the conversation in case somebody overheard us.

Less than ten minutes later we arrived at the store.

"Uncle Ade?" Fabian's voice echoed through the apparently empty shop. "Hello?"

We arrived at the front desk to be greeted by a man who looked like he was probably in his late thirties or early forties. He appeared to be filing paperwork of some sort.

"Well look who's here," the man stood up and put his hand out for Fabian to shake. The pair obviously knew each other.

"Jasper," Fabian said in surprise. "I thought you were in Peru. Where's Uncle Ade?"

"Egypt," the man, Jasper, replied. "He's on an archaeological dig. I'm shop-sitting as a favour."

"Nina," Fabian turned back to me. "This is Jasper Choudhary, my godfather."

"Ah, so this is the famous Nina?" Jasper turned to me. "I've heard a lot about you, I must say."

Fabian cleared his throat. "Anyway, if anyone's going to know anything about all this weird stuff it's Jasper. Total Egypt geek."

"Well this 'geek' has dusted enough clutter for one day," he announced. "Weird stuff? Please."

I have to admit that I was starting to wonder whether or not we should be asking this man about the Mask. I didn't know him at all, was it really wise to bring up the topic?

Then again, Fabian seemed to trust him, and I in turn trusted Fabian's judgement. If he was happy to talk to Jasper about this stuff then so was I.

"We were wondering if you knew anything about the Mask of Anubis," I spoke for the first time.

"Funny you should ask that," he frowned, bending over to rummage through one of his drawers.

"We mean the real one," I clarified, wanting to get straight to the point. "Where do the experts think that might be?"

Jasper gave me the answer I didn't want to hear, but had deep down been expecting all along. "Well, no one knows. There are theories, but most think now that it was only ever a myth."

I looked across at Fabian, who was frowning.

"Do you have any information on it?" he asked his godfather eventually.

"Actually, I do," Jasper extracted a stapled pile of papers from the larger one he had retrieved from the drawer. "Here you are, this should have everything you want to know. Just out of interest, why did you want to know about the mask?"

"History project for school," I replied quickly. "We're investigating Ancient Egyptian myths and legends."

He nodded slowly. "Well if you wanted I could ask around some of my internet buddies and see if I can get any more information."

"That would be great," Fabian told him. "Anyway, we'd better get going. See you later."

Jasper bid us farewell and we made our way back to the school.

* * *

The next morning I got up fairly early, even though I didn't actually have to be anywhere at any particular time. Still, I got dressed and made my way down to breakfast. Patricia and Mara were already, down there, discussing something or other. Once I sat down at the table I realised that Mara had been crying.

"Are you okay?" I asked her, frowning. While I didn't agree with her view that Charlotte was in the wrong for everything that had happened between her and Mick, I did feel sorry for her.

She hesitated for a moment before wiping her eyes. "Yeah, I'm fine," she told me, standing up and taking her plate off the table. "See you later Patricia."

With that she left the room, dropping her plate off in the kitchen on the way out.

"Don't mind her," Patricia told me when Mara was out of earshot. "She's just trying to get her head around the whole Mick thing."

I nodded slowly, pouring a small amount of cereal into my bowl. "It's all happened so suddenly," I agreed. "One minute they were fine, and then they just…"

"…fell apart," she finished. "I know what you mean. I don't think anyone really knows the full story."

We ate in silence for a few minutes.

"Anyway," Patricia said. "You've seemed happier lately. Don't take this the wrong way, but you were a complete mess when we first came back."

I shrugged. "The road to recovery is long, but we'll all get there eventually," I told her wisely. "I guess I've just been distracted lately. I never thought I'd say this, but I'm kind of… happy that this spirit lady came along when she did."

She laughed slightly. "Just let me write that one down, I might need it later," she joked.

I rolled my eyes. "You're right, I'll probably regret that one at some point in the future."

Once I'd finished my breakfast I headed upstairs to have a shower and get dressed. By ten o'clock both Charlotte and I were ready to go.

"So where are we off to first?" I asked as we began the short walk into town.

"I dunno," she shrugged. "What sort of shops are there here?"

"Pretty much anything," I told her. "Clothes shops, shoe shops, makeup shops…" I trailed off, forcing back the all too familiar memories of going shopping with Amber. "…and some good cafes too. We should get something to eat."

True, we'd literally just had breakfast, but to be honest I was struggling to think of a shop that I hadn't been to with Amber at some point in time. I wasn't sure if I was ready to go into those just yet.

Charlotte frowned and looked like she was about to argue, but apparently decided against it. Together we made our way to a little café that was situated just outside the main town. I'd been there a few times, once with Fabian and once with Mara and Patricia, but never with Amber. I decided it was the best option.

"Mara reckons they have the best iced chocolates here," I told her as we sat down. The other times I'd gone there I hadn't actually had anything except for a bottle of water, but I trusted Mara's taste in beverages.

Charlotte frowned when I mention Mara's name.

"Right, sorry," I said. "I get it, touchy subject."

"It's fine," she shook her head.

"So how and things between you and… Angus?" I struggled to remember his name.

Charlotte grimaced. "He's still not replying to my messages," she sighed. "I spoke to his sister, who also happens to be my best friend, and apparently he's pretty cut up."

"Well at least you know he really likes you," I offered in a vain attempt to cheer her up a little.

"I'm starting to worry it might be 'liked', as in past tense," she sighed. "But Lauren said she'd talk to him, so we'll just have to wait and see how things turn out."

A waitress approached us at this point.

"Hi," she grinned cheerfully, painfully oblivious to the hardships we were going through. "What can I get for you ladies today?"

We ordered and soon our drinks came out. Once we'd finished we headed out into the street and began browsing the shop windows.

"Do you want to go in there?" Charlotte pointed to a small op shop that I hadn't seen before. I have to say that shopping with Amber tends to make you turn a blind eye to anything but the stores that sell the highest quality, highest priced items.

"Sure," I nodded and we headed inside.

Five hours and three hundred dollars later we were ready to return to the house. On account of all our bags we decided to take the bus back.

"Thanks for today," Charlotte said as we sat down towards the front of the vehicle. "I had a great time. But I'd still love to know how you convinced Trudy to let us take the day off."

I laughed slightly. "It was a bit of a combination, I think," I told her. "For a start, she'll pretty much let me take a day off whenever I need it… because of what happened last year. But also – and don't tell her I told you this – she was a bit worried about you, coming to live with us after everything. I think she was relieved that I was making an effort."

The ride was literally only a few stops, so by his point we were pretty much back at the school. We thanked the driver as we got off the bus and together we walked back to Anubis House.

That evening I went out for dinner with Gran because it was her last night. She was the kind of person who liked to eat quite early, so by the time we got back everyone else was finishing up their meal. I noticed that Fabian was missing.

"He's upstairs with Joy," Patricia replied when I inquired as to his whereabouts, watching my reaction closely.

I put on a poker face and pretended not to be phased. "Okay, thanks," I made my way upstairs and stopped outside Mara and Patricia's room. I could hear Joy's melodic laughter coming from inside. Pushing back my jealousy, I opened the door.

Fabian and Joy were both sitting on the floor, the laptop sitting in front of them playing very Egyptian-sounding music. But what really bothered me was the fact that Joy's foot was resting in Fabian's lap, and he was massaging it. They both looked up at me, Fabian shocked and Joy smug. I quickly closed the door, not wanting to intrude on whatever private moment they were having.

I was on the verge of crying, which was honestly stupid. Fabian and I were _not_ dating, he was perfectly entitled to massage the feet of any girl he liked.

I didn't realise that Patricia had come up, but I guess she must have because I ran into her head first.

"Woah, sorry Nina," she said before frowning. "Hey, are you okay?"

I really wanted to just tell her everything, and I almost did. But then I remembered that she was – or at least had been – Joy's best friend. I wasn't really sure whose side she would be on.

"Yeah, I'm fine," I promised, stepping past her and into my room.

It had been a long, emotional day, and to be honest I was exhausted. I took my shoes off and went straight to be without getting changed. I was asleep before my head even hit the pillow.

 **Thanks for reading and please review!**

 **Today was my last day of school for the year, which means I'll hopefully have more time to write. Next chapter will be up on Friday.**

 **See you then!**

 **-Bobbi**


	15. Chapter 15

**Sorry I'm a day late guys, my family went on an impromptu short holiday and we only got back this morning.**

 **Anyway, I hope you enjoy this chapter!**

 **As always I don't own House of Anubis.**

 _Mara's POV_

The tension in the air was high on Friday afternoon.

It was D-Day: Mick was leaving for good.

"Come on Mara, he just wants to say goodbye," Patricia and Nina were standing in the doorway trying to get me to come down and see him off.

I was being stubborn, sitting cross-legged on my bed with my arms folded across my chest.

"I don't want to," I lied. "I'm not coming down and that's final."

Nina and Patricia sighed simultaneously. They just stood there for a moment, apparently thinking.

"You know," Nina said thoughtfully. "If you _don't_ go down, it's kind of like letting him win."

"How do you figure that one?" I asked, confused. This wasn't a competition; there weren't any winners or losers.

"Well from what I understand, Mick only kissed Charlotte because he was sick of you being jealous," she explained. I went to object, but she continued before I could. "I know you don't agree, but for the sake of this argument let's say that it's true. If you don't go down, it shows him that it did affect you."

"Nina's right," Patricia agreed. "You've got to go down there and show him that he can't mess with you like that."

I hadn't really thought of it that way before, but the more I contemplated the idea the more sense it made. I couldn't let Mick have this victory.

"You know what? You guys are right," I told them, standing up. "I'm just going to go down there and show him that I'm a strong, independent woman, and that I'm the one who calls the shots in this relationship, not him."

"Woah, hang on a sec," Patricia frowned. "I thought there was no relationship anymore."

I frowned, contemplating this. "I actually don't know," I admitted. "We never officially broke up, but…"

"Okay," Nina said worriedly, grabbing my arm and pulling me out the door. "You really need to talk to Mick then. You can't have him leave when you don't know what your relationship status is."

"But surely they can't be dating still," Patricia told her. "I mean Mick cheated on her, and in case you haven't noticed, he's about to move halfway across the world."

"But if they didn't specifically break up, nobody can be really sure," she pointed. "It's just better to be on the safe side."

By this point we had reached the top of the stairs. I could hear Mick's voice floating through from the living room, and immediately I chickened out.

"I don't think I can do this," I told them, shaking my arm free from Nina's grip.

"It's easy," Patricia assured me. "You just go in there, tell him what a loser he is, dump his sorry backside and get on with your life."

I bit my lip. Was that really what I wanted?

Apparently Nina picked up on the fact that I wasn't too keen on Patricia's plan. "Unless you don't _want_ to break up with him."

I sighed, which they both interpreted to mean that I didn't actually want to break up with him.

"Seriously Mara?" Patricia groaned. "After everything he did?"

"I can't help it," I shrugged.

"Unfortunately you're right," Nina sighed. "We don't get to choose who we fall for. But you've got a guy down there that you really like, and who really likes you back. Everyone makes mistakes, Mara."

Apparently Patricia didn't agree with Nina's opinion. "I still don't think you should forgive him," she told me. "What he did to you was pretty horrible."

Now I was even more confused than before. Having my two best friends divided over the issue was making it difficult for me.

"In the end it's your choice Mara," Nina pointed out. "Follow your heart."

I sighed, nodding slowly. "Okay."

With that the three of us headed down into the living room where Fabian, Jerome and Alfie were all saying goodbye to Mick.

It didn't escape my attention that Charlotte wasn't there. She must have been hiding in her room, but why? Was it because she felt bad for what she had done, or was Nina right, and was she angry at Mick for ruining her relationship with her Australian boyfriend?

But then it hit me. Mick hadn't ruined her relationship with Angus. It had been _me_. For the first time, I actually felt a bit guilty for what I had done, and resolved to try and patch things up between them.

After all, it was stupid to let a boy get in the way of what could potentially be a good friendship, especially when I didn't even know for sure that she even liked Mick.

"Hey Mara."

I was brought back to reality by Mick's voice. Everyone was looking between us, apparently wondering what was going to happen next.

"Hey," I replied.

The others took this as their cue to leave, and soon we were the only two people in the living room.

"So," he said, taking a step closer to me. "We haven't really spoken, since…" he trailed off.

"…you kissed Charlotte," I finished for him. "Yeah, I know."

There was another silence before Mick spoke again.

"About that," he said. "I really am sorry. I don't actually like her, I was just… frustrated, I guess. Last year you were jealous of me and Amber, and then it was me and Charlotte, I just felt like you were suffocating me. I want to be able to be friends with other girls without making you suspicious. I guess I was just proving a point."

I took a moment to think about this. Mick was right: I could get very jealous at times.

"Well I'm sorry," I told him. "You do have a point. I just wish it didn't have to end this way."

"Me too," Mick sighed. "But what's done is done. I'll see you round… or I guess I won't."

And so that was it. We were over, done, finished.

I watched Mick leave the room, trying to hold back the tears that were pooling in my eyes.

Mick left less than an hour later, but by that point I was already sulking in my room.

There was a knock at the door. I looked up and was surprised to see Charlotte standing at the door.

"Hey," she said. Her eyes were red and puffy: she'd been crying.

"Hi," I said in reply, slightly confused as to why she had suddenly decided to come and see me.

"Can we talk?" she asked after a moment.

I nodded, so she hesitantly took a few steps into the room.

"I just…" she hesitated. "I want to make sure there are no hard feelings between us. I've never liked Mick, dead-set."

"Dead what?" I asked, confused.

"Dead-set," she repeated. "Don't you say that here?"

"Not really in that context," I admitted.

Charlotte laughed. "That's okay, you guys say some pretty weird stuff too."

"Like what?" I asked, pretending to be defensive.

She thought for a moment. "Like 'snog'. We would never say that in Australia."

"Seriously?"

"Yeah," she confirmed. "We would always say 'kiss' or 'make out'."

"That's weird," I told her.

"That coming from the girl who uses the word 'snog' in conversation."

We both laughed, and for the first time since the whole Mick incident I finally felt like we were getting along.

"I believe you," I told her after a moment.

She tilted her head to one side. "What?"

"That you don't fancy Mick. I'm sorry I was so stupid."

Charlotte shook her head. "It's fine," she told me. "I'm sorry I was hanging out with your boyfriend."

"So we're cool?" I asked.

She nodded, putting out her hand for me to shake.

"If you don't mind," I said after a moment, "I'd like to try and help you patch things up with your boyfriend. I feel bad for what I did."

Charlotte smiled sadly at me. "I'm not sure if anything can be done to save us now. He's not picking up or replying to my messages or anything."

"I really am sorry," I sighed.

She shrugged. "We'd been dating since the end of year seven."

"Since you were eleven?" I asked, slightly alarmed.

She shook her head. "I mean year seven in Australia, which would be equivalent to your year nine."

I did the maths, and immediately I felt even more bad. "Two years? That's such a long time."

She smiled sadly. "Before I started dating Angus, I never saw relationships as something permanent. My mum's had four husbands and many more boyfriends, and I guess it just rubbed off on me. In my first year of high school I dated more guys than I could count on both my hands, but Angus taught me that it didn't have to be that way."

By this point I had resolved that I was going to get Charlotte and her ex back together at all costs. How I was going to do that, I had no idea.

The weekend passed quickly, and all too soon it was Monday again. Poppy Clarke, Jerome's younger sister, approached me at the end of the day. I had recently helped her to convince Jerome to let her read a letter that their father had sent them, and since then she had been coming to me for help and advice.

"The weirdest thing happened just before," she told me as I got my bag out of my locker. "I think maybe my dad came to this school."

"Really?" I asked her, closing my locker. "I mean it's possible, I guess. We could do some research online if you wanted."

"Yes please," she nodded. "If you're not too busy."

To be honest I really liked Jerome's sister, so I was happy to put aside some time for her.

"I'm sure I can squeeze you in," I joked. "Come on, let's go back to Anubis House."

Half an hour later we were surfing the school archives in search of a 'John Clarke'.

"I'm telling you, Sweetie knew my dad," Poppy insisted. We had been searching for a while, but we hadn't found anything. "He went all weird when I mentioned his name."

"He was too young to be running the school back then," I reasoned.

We searched for a little longer, and I soon found some names that were categorised by the year the student had attended the school.

"Here we go," I said, glad for Poppy's sake that we were finally getting somewhere. "1978, John Clarke!"

She pulled out an old photo and compared it to the one on the screen of the laptop. "That's him."

"Hang on," I frowned, pressing the back arrow to go back to the previous page. "I think you might be right about Sweetie too."

I clicked on the name 'E. Sweet' and a picture of a very young looking Mr Sweet popped up accompanied by a short biography.

"That's definitely him," I confirmed. "They were both at Anubis House."

Poppy frowned and voiced the question I had been contemplating. "So why didn't he say?"

 **Thanks for reading! Next chapter will be up tomorrow.**

 **See you then!**

 **-Bobbi**


	16. Chapter 16

**I'm back!**

 **Sorry for the long wait, I was suffering from a severe lack of motivation. The good news is that within the last few hours I've planned out and started writing the next few chapters as well, so updates should come at least every second day for the next few chapters.**

 **As usual, I don't own House of Anubis.**

 **Enjoy!**

 _Nina's POV_

I sighed, putting the book I had been reading down on my bedside table. I was researching the mask of Anubis, but everything I'd read said exactly the same thing. Unfortunately this didn't involve the whereabouts of the mask.

I tried to think rationally about it. There was a replica of the mask in the exhibition that had been crafted by Louisa Frobisher-Smythe, therefore she must have had possession of it or a least seen it at some point in time. If the mask was real, this wasn't actually as crazy as it sounded. After all, the Frobisher-Smythes had brought back the Cup of Ankh from Egypt. What if that hadn't been the only thing?

But that still didn't really bring us much closer to finding the whereabouts of the Mask.

"I just wish I had a clue!" I said in frustration, forgetting for a moment that Charlotte was in the room with me.

She looked over at me, the expression on her face suggesting that she was questioning my mental stability (but then again, who wasn't these days?). After a moment her eyes shifted over to something that was to my right and her expression changed to one of shock. "Is it supposed to do that?"

"What?" I asked confused. I looked to where she was pointing to see that the windows of the dollhouse were once again lit up.

"Does it have batteries?"

"Something like that," I told her, getting up to take a closer look. "Come on, what are you trying to tell me?"

"Just out of interest, are you talking to me or the dollhouse?" I heard Charlotte say behind me, the confusion evident in her voice. At that moment a small compartment opened up underneath the dollhouse.

I laughed nervously in reply, turning around to face my roommate.

"Are you okay Nina?"

I felt around inside the small drawer and found a folded piece of paper, which I took out before trying to close the compartment. The only thing I really managed to achieve was jamming my fingers.

"Yeah, I'm fine," I grimaced, clenching my teeth to distract myself from the pain. "I'm actually a bit tired, so I'm gunna go to bed now, okay?"

"I think that might be a good idea," Charlotte agreed, more than a little weirded out. "Night."

"Night," I nodded, returning to my bed after my second, more successful attempt to close the drawer.

The next morning I headed downstairs to breakfast early, eager to show the others what I had discovered. Closer inspection the previous night had revealed that the piece of paper was a map.

I arrived in the diner area to find that Fabian was already eating.

"Hey," I greeted him, and I could have sworn I saw him jump.

"Hey," he turned around, and one look at him told me he probably hadn't slept well.

"I need to tell you something," we both said at the same time, laughing at the fact we'd spoken in unison. "You first." We laughed again.

"You go," he told me. "Your news is probably better than mine."

I was curious, but eager to tell him my news, so I didn't hesitate. "Look what I found in a secret compartment under the dollhouse," I took out the map and opened it up on the table. "It looks like a sequence of tunnels."

Fabian flattened it out to get a better look at it. "You're right," he told me. "And look at all the Egyptian symbols. See, that's the jackal mark," he pointed it out on the map. "The mark of Anubis."

"Do you think that's where the mask is hidden?" I asked, growing excited. "I mean, I did find this under the dollhouse, so maybe it's trying to tell us that the Mask is under the house!"

"You think the dollhouse is giving us clues?" Fabian clarified.

"Yeah," I told him, remembering another discovery I had made the previous night. "Well, not the dollhouse exactly. It used to belong to Sarah, so I think it's her giving us the clues."

Admittedly that had sounded way less crazy in my head. I expected him so simply reject the idea, but instead he nodded slowly.

"I've heard crazier ideas," he pointed out, taking a closer look at the map.

"Now what did you want to tell me?" I asked him.

Fabian's face fell. "Now Nina, before I tell you I want you to know that this isn't your fault, okay?"

"What happened Fabian?" I frowned, worried now.

He hesitated before reaching for his sleeve. I knew what was coming before I saw the mark.

"You've got one too?" I asked. "I'm _so_ sorry Fabian, this is all my fault."

"No it's not," he assured me. "You can't blame yourself for this."

I was about to reply when suddenly we heard a voice from the doorway.

"Wow Fabian, out of all the people in this house, you would be the last person I would expect to get a tat *****."

His eyes widened as he quickly shoved his sleeve down.

"What is that of, anyway?" Charlotte asked, coming to sit down. "It looks like a dog face or something."

"Yeah, something like that," I said, trying to steer away from the topic of conversation as quickly as possible. "So did you sleep well?"

Unfortunately she saw through my oh-so subtle attempt to change the subject. "What is it with you guys?" she asked suspiciously, looking between us. "You're always sneaking around and whispering and only half explaining yourselves when people ask questions."

"Oh don't worry, you get used to it," Jerome chose that moment to enter the kitchen.

"What do you mean?" Charlotte asked him as he came to sit down.

"Jerome, could you pass the jam?" I asked pointedly, signalling that the conversation was over.

He raised his eyebrows at me, but didn't press the subject.

Soon Fabian and I had finished, so we headed out of the dining room.

"Fabian," I stopped him once we were in the hallway. "I've been thinking, and we need to cut Patricia out of all this."

"What do you mean?" he asked

I hesitated. "I can't put anyone else in danger. It's bad enough that you're involved. I'd never forgive myself if something happened to you… or anyone else," I added as an afterthought.

"Nina, it's going to be okay," he promised. "But if you feel better not telling Patricia about the map, then-"

"What are we not telling Patricia?" speak of the devil, Patricia appeared at the top of the stairs.

People seemed to suddenly have a very annoying habit of walking in at exactly the wrong moment.

"That… we're planning a surprise birthday party for you," I lied before realising that I didn't actually know when her birthday was.

"My birthday's in April," she pointed out. "So either you've suddenly become the most organised person on the planet, or you're lying."

"Look, we'll talk about this later, okay?" I resigned. "For now let's just get over to school."

"Actually," Fabian said as we headed out of the house. "Victor's doing the voice-over for the bid movie, and Joy and I were going to record him this lunchtime. That would be the perfect opportunity for you two to go down and check out the cellar."

"The cellar?" Patricia asked. "How much exactly have I missed?"

"Good idea Fabian," I nodded, before turning back to Patricia. "So here's the thing…"

I briefly explained our map deductions as the three of us walked over. Our first class was Drama, so that was where we headed. All the other Anubis residents except for Charlotte were already there, but apart from that the room was empty.

"Hey guys," Joy bounced brightly into the room. "I've got some great news."

"Oh yeah?" I asked, trying not to sound sceptical.

"So here's the thing," she said. "I didn't want to stay in Anubis this term, for reasons that you all know, but now that Mick's left and there's only six of you, I've decided that I can move on from the events that happened last term and come back!"

While some of the others seemed quite enthusiastic about this, I can't say I was all that pleased.

"What did happen last year to make you move to Isis House?" Mara asked.

"You know, the whole 'Chosen One' fiasco," Joy said before she realised who she was talking to.

"What 'Chosen One' fiasco," she asked, confused. "Guys, did something big happen last year that you're not telling me about?"

We all looked at each other, trying to think quickly.

"Cyber bullying," Patricia announced eventually, confusing us all.

"What?" Mara asked.

"Last term… Joy was cyber bullied by someone who called themselves the Chosen One on an internet chat site," she replied slowly, clearly making up the story on the spot. "Her parents removed her from the school, it was that bad. She thought it was someone from Anubis House."

"But who would do that?" Mara surprisingly bought the very unconvincing story.

"You see that's the thing," Joy said. "Turns out I was wrong, it was actually some kid from Hathor, so it's all okay for me to come back now."

"Right," Mara nodded, slowly, clearly still confused. Fortunately by this point it was time for class to start, so she didn't have time to find the obvious flaws in our cover.

At lunch time Patricia and I waited until Fabian and Joy were well and truly back at Anubis before we headed over there ourselves. One trip through the bread oven later we were back in the spooky cellar.

"Looks like Victor hasn't given up his old habits," I observed, gesturing to the table of chemicals that was the centrepiece of the gloomy room. I got out the map and adjusted it so it was facing the right angle. "So according to this, there should be another room leading off from this one right about… here," I looked up to be confronted by a very solid looking bookshelf.

"Nina, your locket!" I followed Patricia's eyes to see that my locket was glowing red.

"It must have something to do with these shelves," I concluded, running my hands along the dusty bookcase. After a moment I decided to try pushing them, but to no avail. "Come on," I said, shaking them in frustration.

"Nina, look," Patricia was pointing to the top of the bookshelf. There was an intricate snake pattern carved into it, but close inspection revealed that four of the snakes were fixed on something that rotated rather than just carved into the wall. One of them had shifted so that half of a zero could be made out.

I played around with it a bit more to find more numbers. "It's some sort of Victorian combination lock," I realised. "But what's the code?"

"It could be anything," Patricia pointed out.

"Yeah," I nodded. "But people usually use numbers that are easy to remember."

"Maybe someone's birthday," she suggested.

"Patricia, you're a genius," I exclaimed, reaching up to the lock. "Sarah's birthday, I know when that is."

I twisted the numbers to 1915, but apparently that wasn't the correct code.

"Or maybe not," I frowned, trying to think of any possible numbers.

"Ah Nina," Patricia was looking down at her watch. "We were supposed to be at school five minutes ago."

"You're right," I agreed, glancing down at my own. "We need more numbers. We can come back later."

Our final class of the day was English. We were _supposed_ to be working on an assignment, but instead Fabian and I got online to research some other possible numbers.

"Okay, so we've got both of Sarah's parents' birthdays now," I looked down at our list. "We could also try 1922, the year the house was named 'Anubis'."

Just then the bell went to signal the end of class.

"Let's get down there and try these out," Fabian said. "Trudy and Victor should be at the library."

I nodded in agreement, and we quickly got up and left the room.

 ***Just to clear up any confusion, 'tat' is Australian slang for a tattoo.**

 **And there you have it! The next chapter will probably be the longest yet and should be up tomorrow.**

 **See you then!**

 **-Bobbi**


	17. Chapter 17

**Here's the new chapter, as promised.**

 **Tonight there's plenty of drama, find out why Nina becomes jealous, how Fabian becomes a dating guru and whether or not Victor and the team are successful in their attempt to secure the exhibition!**

 **(Also while you're at it could you find out why I've suddenly turned into one of those perky TV voice-over ladies?!)**

 **Actually don't worry, I think I've just had a bit too much sugar. Maybe I shouldn't have bought quite so many candy canes...**

 **Anyway, onto the story. This chapter's the longest by far, it's over 3000 words!**

 **As per usual, I don't own House of Anubis. See you at the bottom!**

 _Fabian's POV_

"I can't believe it," I sighed, leaning back against the wall. "None of these numbers work."

I was down in the cellar with Nina, and we were trying out the numbers we had found online earlier in the combination lock.

"Now I'm stuck," Nina said. "I have no idea what the code is."

We just stood there for a moment, contemplating.

"So how are things going with you and Joy?" Nina asked, completely out of the blue.

"What do you mean?" I asked, confused.

"Well you two have been spending a lot of time together," she pointed out, her voiced laced with what sounded like jealousy. "I just figured-"

"Joy and I are just friends," I told her. "And that's all I ever want us to be. You figured wrong."

"You don't have to lie to me," she told me, even though I was genuinely telling the truth. "I'm totally cool with it, if you like her in that way. But we're best friends, so we should tell each other stuff like that."

I was kind of confused where all this was coming from.

"And you know, if you ever need any help," she continued, "I _am_ a girl, so I know what makes us tick."

"Nina," I said, still confused. "I really don't like Joy like that, or even very much at all to be honest. She's been… weird since she got back, not really herself. The only reason I'm spending time with her is for the bid."

She looked at me for a moment, biting her bottom lip, as if trying to determine whether or not I was telling the truth. After a moment she seemed to perk up a little. "Okay then."

And just like that the strange conversation was over, leaving me more than a little confused.

After that we decided to head back upstairs, neither of us wanting to spend more time in the dusty cellar than absolutely necessary. I went back to my room to find that Mick's side, which had been completely empty that morning, was now half full of stuff again.

I looked up to the doorway in time to see Jerome enter, carrying a large box. "I was wondering where you got to."

"What are you doing?" I asked as he placed the box down in the middle of the floor.

"Trudy figured that having two three doubles and one single was better than having a double, a triple and two singles," he explained. "So long story short, Joy's moving into my old room and I'm your new roommate."

To be honest, I could think of very little that could possibly be worse than having Jerome as a roommates, and that was saying something seeing as I'd stayed in the same room as _Mick_ since I was thirteen.

It was then that I realised that Jerome and I were now the only two boys left in Anubis house. As much as I hated to admit it, I could see us becoming quite good friends in the not too distant future.

Now _that's_ not something I ever thought I'd say.

I took out my laptop and tried to make some progress on my English assignment while Jerome finished moving his things into my, sorry _our_ , bedroom. Half an hour later everything seemed to have been relocated, so he began to unpack things from the boxes he had them in.

"So Rutter," he frowned, balancing some school books precariously on his bedside table. "I can't believe I'm saying this, but… you know a bit about girls, right?"

It was then that I officially decided that the world was going mad. First Nina, now Jerome. What was going on?

"The amount that I know about girls is equivalent to the likelihood of Patricia becoming a guidance councillor," I scoffed.

"Ha ha," he said sarcastically. "But seriously, you must be onto something. You've got two girls desperate to hang out with you."

"How do you figure that one?"

He chuckled slightly. "Can you seriously not see it, mate? Joy and Nina and both crazy for you."

I frowned. Joy definitely liked me, I could have seen that with my eyes closed, but Nina? I wasn't so sure about that one.

"You're just lucky that the girl you fancy likes you back," he sighed. "Mara's still hung up over Mick moving away."

"Wait, you fancy Mara?" this was news to me, and I was surprised that Jerome was suddenly so willing to tell me his personal stuff.

"So how do you do it?" Jerome asked, dodging my question. "I mean, I try so hard and get nothing, but you get everything handed to you without even lifting a finger."

"Believe me, I didn't ask for this," I sighed. "It's not as good as you make it sound. Even if Nina does like me, which I doubt, she's convinced that I fancy Joy."

"Do you know that for a fact or are you just jumping to conclusions?" he asked me.

"Nina went all weird on me down in the cellar," I told him before I realised what I was saying. I moved on quickly to try and distract from what I'd accidently told him. "She was convinced that Joy and I are dating when there's nothing going on between us."

"I'm not even going to ask what you were doing in the cellar," he frowned. "But seriously, if she's really that interested in whether or not you and Joy are an item, then you can safely assume that she's jealous."

I wasn't sure if I agreed with him, but what I really wanted to know was why he was being so nice to be all of a sudden.

"Boys at Anubis House are becoming somewhat of an endangered species," he replied when I voiced this question. "We've got to look out for each other."

Knowing Jerome this made me even more suspicious, but before I could take any action Trudy's voice came from the kitchen to summon us to dinner. I had always known that Jerome liked his food, but to be honest I'd never seen somebody move quite as quickly as he did. Rolling my eyes, I followed him into the kitchen.

The next morning I arrived at breakfast early in hopes of discussing some more possible combinations for the lock in the cellar with Nina. Unfortunately Joy and Mara were present and Nina was not, so that was impossible on two fronts.

"Right everyone," Joy said brightly, entering the living room carrying her clipboard. "Today's the big bid. Fabian, movie finished? Mara, speech learnt?"

"Yeah," I nodded, spreading some jam on my toast.

There was a moment of silence before Mara had realised she was being spoken to. "What? Oh, yeah."

It was common news that Mara was still down over the way things had finished between her and Mick. I was surprised Joy was even letting her do the speech in her current situation.

"Good," she nodded. "And we expect everyone to be there to give their full support. That means you too," she turned to Jerome, who had just entered and was mimicking her behind her back.

"Of course," he nodded, earning an eye roll from Joy.

After breakfast we all headed over to the Frobisher Library.

"Come on, let's get a move on," Victor's voice echoed through the building as we entered. "Mr Ziestack is already here. Now is this microphone working?" he moved over to the stand that the microphone was on.

"Has anyone seen Mara?" Joy was frantically searching the library. "She's supposed to be giving the opening speech."

"Last time I saw her she was at the house," I told her. "But that was at breakfast."

Joy huffed in annoyance. "You'll have to do it," she told me.

"Me?" I squeaked, not at all keen on that idea. "I'm not sure that's such a good idea Joy."

"Well what's the alternative? We all know what happens when you put _me_ and public speaking together, and that never ends well for anyone."

She had a fair point there, but I really wasn't keen on doing the speech. "Nina could do it," I suggested, looking over at Nina.

Joy's face fell, and she looked like she was about to protest.

"Come on Joy," I said. "You were at the play last year, you saw how well she copes in front of an audience. Are you up for it Nina?"

"If you really need me to," Nina shrugged, hesitatnt. "Do you have a copy of Mara's speech?"

Joy begrudgingly reached into her pocket and pulled out a copy of the speech. "Knock 'em dead," she told her through clenched teeth.

At that moment Mr Sweet and Mr Ziestack arrived so everyone grouped around the podium. Mr Ziestack sat down while Joy hurried over to tell Mr Sweet, who was approaching the microphone, the change that had been made.

"Okay, thankyou Joy," he said before turning to the small audience to begin his speech. "I'd like to offer a warm welcome to Mr Gustav Zeistack. It's a real privilege for us to present our bid, and we hope that he will find it worthy of the exhibition. I'm now going to hand over to Miss Nina Martin, who will give our opening address. Nina?"

Taking a deep breath, Nina left my side and headed up to the microphone.

"Thanks Mr Sweet," she said, nodding to the headmaster before looking down at the notes and pausing for a moment.

"What's she doing?" Joy whispered from next to me. "She's going to mess everything up."

"Don't worry, it's going to be fine," I promised her, offering a small smile in Nina direction.

She returned it before beginning the speech.

In the end Joy had nothing to worry about. Nina did a great job, and before long there was some polite applause and the film started playing.

"You did great," I told Nina as she joined us in the audience.

"Thanks," she grinned back at me.

We just looked at each other, both still grinning for some reason. I didn't know how it was possible, but her smile made her look even more beautiful than she already was. I love the way she smiled with her whole face, not just her mouth, the way her eyes sparkled…

I was brought back to reality by a small huff from Joy's direction. We broke eye contact, awkwardly trying to look at anything but each other. I focussed my attention back on the film.

"…and so, since its genesis in 1890, this estate has been devoted to…" Victor's voice came through the large speakers.

"Fabian," Nina said excitedly. "What if 1890's the combination code?"

It was the best lead we had, so I nodded as the film came to an end. We all dispersed, giving Mr Ziestack some time to think.

He went over to talk to Mr Sweet, who was incidentally standing not very far away from us.

"…am I correct?" we were only able to catch parts of the conversation.

"Yes, that's right," Mr Sweet replied. "Quite tragic… good for them… something to focus on…"

So Mr Sweet was playing the sympathy card? He must have been really desperate to get this exhibition. But then so were we, so I decided not to judge him.

After a few more minutes Mr Ziestack approached the stage. "Thank you for your warm welcome," he addressed us. "This is the third and final bid I have seen this week, and it was certainly the strongest."

This was met by a collective sigh of relief from the rest of us, teachers and students alike.

"So do we get the exhibition?" Victor asked hopefully.

Mr Ziestack paused, drawing out our agony. "Yes," he announced finally.

Everyone cheered, immediately relaxing. Nina jumped up and down a few times, and then I felt someone tap me on the shoulder. I turned around to be engulfed in a hug by Joy. I was kind of confused, but hugged her back regardless.

After that we all went in our separate directions. Nina and I headed over to talk to Jasper, who had been asked by Mr Sweet to be the curator of the exhibition.

"Well done," I congratulated my godfather.

"You too," he replied. "You and Joy did a great job on that movie. And Nina, what an excellent speech."

"I'm afraid I can't take all the credit for that one," Nina laughed. "Mara wrote it and was supposed to read it, but I had to step in at the last moment. Speaking of which," she turned to me. "I'm gunna go back to the house to see if she's okay."

I nodded. "It's not like her to not show up for something like this."

"She hasn't been coping well since Mick left," she explained. "She's been hiding out in her room, just like she did after…"

Nina trailed off, but we both knew what she was talking about. After Amber's death, Mara's coping mechanism had been to lock herself in her room, only coming out for meals or the occasional class. After Nina and Alfie, Mara had taken it the worst. She blamed her falling out with Amber earlier that term for the events of prom night.

Nina had left, so I continued to talk to Jasper for a while as other people came in and out of the conversation as they pleased. Eventually I decided to head back to the house.

"Hey," Nina appeared at the top of the stairs just as I entered the house, followed closely by Patricia.

"Hey," I replied as they came out to meet me. "Do you want to go down to the cellar and try that combo?"

"It's not like we've got anything better to do," Patricia pointed out.

Nina and I nodded in agreement, so the three of us headed into the kitchen and through the secret tunnel.

"Patricia," Nina sighed once we were safely in the cellar. "I… I don't think you should come with us."

"Yeah right," Patricia scoffed. "Like I'm gunna let you do this on your own. We're Sibuna, we're in this together."

Nina tensed beside me at the mention of Sibuna. It was kind of like a forbidden topic, bringing up too many painful memories.

"There's one thing we didn't mention," she insisted, reaching for her sleeve and pulling it up.

I did the same, and Patricia stared at us in awe as our identical marks came into view.

"What the hell are they?" she asked.

"It's the mark of Anubis," Nina replied. "It's a curse. It means we have to find the Mask, or else we forfeit our lives. I didn't want anyone else to get involved, in case they got cursed too, like this crazy person over here."

"Guys, we're in this together," Patricia insisted. "There's no way I'm leaving you to do this one your own, especially if your lives are at stake."

"But-" Nina tried to argue.

"No buts," she said firmly, raising her right hand to cover her eye. "Sibuna?"

I copied her action, turning expectantly towards Nina.

There was a moment of silence before she apparently caved. She raised her hand half-heartedly towards her eye before quickly dropping it and moving in the direction of the bookshelf.

"So what was it?" Nina asked, talking more to herself than us. "1890, that's right," she fiddled with the lock.

Nothing happened for a moment, and Nina deflated slightly. She looked over at me, the disappointment evident in her eyes.

Suddenly there was a loud scraping noise and the bookcase began to move sideways.

"Yes!" Nina exclaimed, jumping up and down a few times.

We cautiously approached the opening in the wall. There was some kind of study on the other side.

Deciding we had nothing left to lose, the three of us entered the room. We wandered around for a few moments, picking up random objects to examine. Suddenly the opening in the wall closed up again, leaving us trapped.

Nina put down the book she had been examining and went to inspect the area where the hole had just been.

"What's this?" I looked over in time to see her reach out to press a small gold button.

Once again the door slid open.

"At least we know we can get out now," Nina announced as it closed with a clicking sound.

The three of us went back to what we had been doing.

"Hey, look at this," I held up a pen I had found on the desk, blowing the dust away. "RFS."

"Robert Frobisher-Smythe," Nina nodded, appearing by my side. "It was Sarah's dad's."

We were distracted from our discovery by a loud crash from behind us.

"Oops," Patricia frowned at the painting she had been examining, which was now sitting on the floor.

Nina and I were more interested in the objects that had been hidden behind the painting. There was a set of amulets hanging on the wall, and they were glowing brightly. Sharing a glance, we went over to take a closer look.

"There's a different hieroglyph on each one," I observed, taking one off the wall to inspect.

"I've seen these before," Nina frowned deep in thought. Suddenly a look of realisation dawned on her face. She reached into her pocket and retrieved her map. "See," she pointed to one of the symbols. "Same as the amulets."

"So do you think the amulets could help us find the tunnels?" Patricia asked, taking one off to have a look for herself.

"Maybe," I shrugged. "But I'm pretty sure amulets were traditionally thought to offer protection, not help find… stuff," I struggled to find a more accurate word.

"It's no good," Nina sighed. "We've hit a dead end."

She seemed pretty upset. I hated seeing her like that, so I tried to think of something, _anything_ , that could possible help us.

"These are Robert's diaries," I picked up one of the books I had been looking at before. "Maybe we should take a few each and see if we can find anything about amulets or secret passageways."

Patricia groaned. "Great, I was wondering what I was supposed to do with the rest of my life."

Nina and I shared a glance as we picked up three books each. It was going to be a long night.

 **Well, that was exciting. I'm visiting family tomorrow for Christmas, but I've got the next chapter already written up so I should be able to find a few minutes to post it. If not, have a great Christmas and I'll see you on Boxing Day!**

 **Until next time!**

 **-Bobbi**


	18. Chapter 18

**Merry Christmas Everyone!**

 **Here's the new chapter, as promised. Enjoy!**

 **I don't own House of Anubis.**

 _Patricia's POV_

After grabbing a pile of books for myself, I followed Nina and Fabian back out into the cellar. Nina then made her way through the secret passage with Fabian close behind and me bringing up the rear.

To be honest, I was feeling kind of overwhelmed. Last year's mystery, although it involved sneaking around, theft and kidnap, hadn't really put our lives in danger, at least not til the very end. Now Nina and Fabian were cursed right off the bat, threatened with their lives if they didn't do as the spirit asked. How long would it be until I joined them?

"What on _Earth_ are you guys doing?" a voice ahead of me made my bang my head on the low ceiling.

On the bright side, it wasn't Victor or Trudy, or anyone else who could get us expelled.

On the not so bright side it was Mara, who wasn't going to be too happy that we'd been keeping a secret from her.

By this point we were all back in the kitchen. The three of us looked at each other, wide eyed.

"Well?" Mara frowned. "Are you going to tell me what you were doing in the bread oven, or do I have to go find out from _Victor_?"

Nobody spoke, and eventually she sighed.

"Come on girls, I thought we said no secrets," she insisted, sounding slightly hurt. "What about the sisterhood?"

Basically, the sisterhood was something that Mara had come up with. After Amber had died she'd decided that the three of us Anubis girls who were left had to stick together and help each other move on, and hence the sisterhood was born.

"Sisterhood?" Fabian asked, confused.

I was about to tell him to mind his own business, but he had already locked eyes with Nina and they seemed to be having some kind of silent conversation. This wasn't the first time I'd seen this, those two could always tell what the other was thinking just by looking at them.

"I'm sorry Mara, we can't tell you," Nina told her gently. "I really want to, but it's too dangerous."

"What do you mean, too dangerous?" she frowned. "Does this have anything to do with the fact that you guys used to sneak off with Amber and Alfie all the time last year?"

Now we were kind of stuck. We either had to lie, and risk Mara finding out the truth some other way, or tell her the truth and risk her losing her life.

"Maybe?" Nina offered in a weak attempt to answer the question.

"You know what, don't bother," Mara sighed turning away. "Keep your secrets, I couldn't care less."

"Mara, wait," I said as she made for the door. "We really don't like keeping secrets from you. It's just… this is big, _really_ big. People could get hurt."

"Are you guys in a gang or something?" she asked hesitantly, taking a step back.

"No," Nina laughed slightly. "Look, you just have to trust us, okay?"

Mara laughed shallowly. "How can I trust you when you refuse to tell me anything?"

I felt really bad, not telling Mara what was going on. But it was for her own safety, right?

She looked between us a few more times, before huffing, turning on her heel and swiftly leaving the room.

Nina, Fabian and I all looked at each other, and I could tell that the others were feeling guilty too.

"Come on guys," Nina sighed eventually, glancing down at our pile of books. "We've got a hell of a lot of reading to do."

The three of us spent the rest of the afternoon in the living room, reading Frobisher-Smythe's diaries. To be perfectly honest, I would have been more entertained watching grass grow.

" _Today I saw a cloud that looked like a sphynx_ ," Fabian read aloud, evidently as bored as I was. " _What a joy it is to be alive_."

"This is _so_ boring," Nina groaned from her seat next to him. "If I read any more I think my eyes are gunna fall out."

"There's got to be another way," I sighed. "Surely the amulets are the key." Suddenly an idea came to me. "Fabian, you said protection," I said. "What if they can protect you from evil spirits?"

"I just think it's gunna take more than a necklace to protect us from this curse," Nina sighed.

At that moment Trudy called us for supper, so we had to drop the subject.

"We should go sown again tonight and have another look," Fabian suggested as we stood up. "I don't think these books are going to help us, but there's got to be some sort of clue as the where the opening for the secret tunnel is."

"Not tonight," I objected. "Mara's suspicious enough as it is. It'll have to be tomorrow."

"Tomorrow it is," Nina nodded. "But we need to get a move on. Somehow I don't think our spirit lady is really the patient type."

Nodding in agreement, we headed over to the dining table.

 **-Line Break-**

The next day after school we were back down in the creepy study. Once again we were wondering around the room, looking for clues. Fabian as rummaging through some papers on the desk, I was searching through the drawers and Nina was examining a bookshelf.

"That's weird," I heard Nina mutter from behind me. By the time I turned around, the bookcase had disappeared and Nina along with it. "Guys?"

Fabian and I looked at each other in alarm and rushed over to where the shelf had been only a moment before.

"Nina, are you okay?" Fabian shouted through the stone, he worry evident in his voice. "What happened?"

"I just pulled one of the books and then the whole thing spun around," Nina's voice came in explanation. "Then there was this bright light, and now it's gone really dark."

"How dark?" I asked as Fabian frantically tried to search for a way to bring the shelf back.

"I-can't-see-my-own-hand-when-I-put-it-up-to-my-face dark," she told us, becoming quite distressed. "Fabian, get me out."

"I'm trying Nina," he said comfortingly in reply to her desperate plea. "I really am. We'll get you out of there, I promise."

It was then that I notice the small button towards the top right-hand corner of the panel. 'What's that?" I asked, reaching out to press it.

There was a loud scraping noise and the panel swung around to reveal Nina and the bookshelf. She didn't look at us though, her eyes were staring far off into the distance. "Guys, what's happening?" she asked. "Did something just happen? Guys, can you hear me?"

Fabian and I just looked at each other, pondering the same question.

Why couldn't Nina see us?

"To those who've trespassed where you do not belong, the beacon of light is your warning song," what seemed to be the recording of a man's voice began to play. "Your eyes shall not see; all shall be dark until Ra completes his blazing ark."

"Ra?" Nina asked herself before raising her voice. "Did you guys hear that?"

"We're right here Nina," Fabian told her, worry etched on his face. "I think you've lost your sight for the next day."

"What do you mean?" she asked, distressed.

"Ra is the sun god," he explained. "And his 'blazing arc' last from dawn til dusk."

I waved my hand in front of Nina's face, but she didn't react.

"We need to get out of here," Fabian announced, approaching Nina cautiously. "Nina, Patricia and I are going to guide you out of here, okay?"

"Okay," she nodded, calming down a little. "We'll come back tomorrow when I've got my sight back."

"Yeah, good idea," Fabian agreed, approaching her cautiously. "We're going to lead you out now."

She nodded, so Fabian gripped her shoulders and led her in the direction of the secret exit.

It was slow work, but eventually we managed to get to Nina's bedroom. We handed her a pair of sunglasses and sat her down on her bed.

"I'll be fine," she told us, reaching out in the direction of her bedside table. "You guys can go if you want."

Fabian and I shared a glance as she accidently pushed her lamp onto the floor. It landed with a loud bang, causing her to leap back in surprise.

"Somehow, I don't think that's such a good idea," Fabian sighed.

 **Sorry it's a bit short, and the quality's not amazing. It's been super hot these last few days, so while I've practically done nothing but write the chapters aren't very good. I can't think in the heat!**

 **Next chapter will be up the day after tomorrow. Have a great Christmas!**

 **-Bobbi**


	19. Chapter 19

**Here's the new chapter, as promised. Enjoy!**

 **I don't own House of Anubis.**

 _Charlotte's POV_

I pulled my earbuds out, slowing to a stop as I breathed heavily. I'd been running for a good 40 minutes, and I'd finally arrived back at the house.

The first thing I did when I got inside was head up to have a shower. As I was getting dressed into some clean clothes, I thought I heard a crash. Frowning in concern, I quickly finished pulled my singlet over my head and made my way into the corridor.

There were some low voices coming from the direction of Nina's and my room, so that was where I headed. I wasn't meaning to spy, but there conversation made me curious.

"…got to be some way to turn off the beam of light," I heard Nina sigh. I looked through the crack in the door to see that she was sitting on her bed sporting a pair of sunglasses. Fabian was next to her and Patricia was cross-legged on the floor.

"What are you doing?" I turned around in surprise to see that Mara had entered the girls' corridor.

I stepped back guiltily. "Waiting so that I can go into my room," I replied. "Is that a crime?"

"What are they talking about?" she clearly didn't believe me, but her voice was quieter now. She moved over to join me beside the door.

"You said that amulets are for protection, right?" Patricia was saying slowly.

I looked over at Mara to see that she was just as confused as I was. Amulets? What were they talking about?

"Yeah," Fabian nodded in reply.

"Patricia, you're a genius," Nina grinned, but instead of looking at Patricia her face was angled so that I imagined she was looking at the wall. "Maybe they're for protection against booby traps."

Once again, Mara and I shared a glance. Booby traps? What kind of school was this?

"You're right," Fabian agreed. "We have to go down and try it out."

This raised even more questions. Go down _where_ and try them out?

"When I get my sight back," Nina added, gesturing towards her face. If she'd lost her sight, that explained why she'd been looking in the complete wrong direction earlier, not to mention the fact that she was wearing sunglasses indoors. "We'll go tomorrow night."

"Sounds like a plan," Patricia nodded, standing up. "Now if you guys are alright up here, I've got to go and do my English assignment."

Mara and I glanced at each other, taking a few steps back. Moments later Patricia appeared in the doorway. She gave us a weird look before shrugging and continuing on into her room.

"That was… weird," I said when she was safely out of earshot.

"I know," Mara agreed. "They're definitely hiding something, aren't they?"

"I reckon," I nodded. "Amulets? Booby traps? Students losing their sight? That kind of stuff doesn't happen at schools in Australia. What the hell is going on?"

"I have no idea," she sighed. "But I'm going to find out."

Still discussing possibilities of what our friends could be hiding, we headed downstairs for tea. We were surprised to find a fairly tall lady with greying-blonde shoulder-length hair standing in the kitchen instead of Trudy.

"Where's Trudy?" Jerome voiced the question we were all contemplating, turning to Victor who was standing next to the lady.

"This is Vera Devenish," he told us, not really answering our question. "She will be your housemother while Trudy works as assistant curator at the exhibition. I trust you will give her the warmest of welcomes."

We all nodded, glad that our housmother had been given this opportunity but sad that she wouldn't be in the house for a while. Jerome was already eyeing the food. We were having lasagne, and to be honest it looked amazing.

At that moment Patricia entered the dining area. We quickly filled her in as we piled our plates with food.

"This is amazing," she announced through a mouthful of food. "This Vera woman might give Trudy a run for her money."

I looked up to see that Vera was simply smiling politely, watching us as we ate.

At that moment Fabian and Nina entered. Everyone looked up as they slowly mad their way over to the table, Fabian holding Nina by her shoulders and guiding her to her seat.

"And the sun is where exactly?" Jerome frowned, commenting on the fact that she was wearing a large pair of sunglasses.

I saw Fabian and Patricia trying to make eye contact, clearly trying to come up with a cover.

"Nina's got… an eye infection," Patricia announced. "The doctor said that wearing glasses would… help stop it from spreading, and it's pretty ugly, so…" she shrugged.

"Wow, thanks Patricia," Nina said sarcastically as Fabian helped her sit down in her chair before heading over to his own. He then proceeded to put some food on her plate before placing a knife in her right hand and a fork in her left.

The rest of us just looked at each other, more than a little confused. Patricia just offered a nervous smile, avoiding meeting our eyes as she found a sudden interest in her half eaten lasagne. Mara was right: there was definitely something going on.

Nina, Fabian and Patricia's weird behaviour continued the next morning. Mara apparently noticed this too, because she pulled me aside on the way over to school.

"So they said they were going back 'down' tonight," she reminded me as we reached our classroom. "I think we should follow them."

"Is that really a good idea?" I asked sceptically. Nina was my closest friend at the school, and I didn't want to upset or annoy her.

"Do you want to find out what's going on or not?" she left that with me, sitting down next to Jerome.

Soon the pair were having a detailed conversation about P.I.s (the people at this school were more than a little weird), so I decided to leave them to it. Besides, I had more interesting things to worry about: Fabian and Nina had just arrived.

"Sorry," he frowned as Nina stumbled on a desk. He led her around it and sat her down before placing her things on the desk.

"Alright class," Mrs Andrews turned to the class having finished whatever conversation she was having with Joy. "Get out your books please, today we'll be conjugating verbs."

That night I reluctantly joined Mara for her stakeout in the laundry.

"Why exactly are we hiding in here?" I asked her as she poked her head out to have another look at the kitchen.

"The other day I found the three of them coming out of the bread oven," she explained in a whisper. "I think that's what they mean when they say they're 'going down'."

"I'm sorry, could you repeat that in my good ear?" I frowned. "Did you just say that you saw them coming out of an oven?"

"Yeah, it's an old one that's been blocked up for years," she told me, distracted. "Look, they're coming now."

Sure enough Nina and Fabian were now in the kitchen. Nina was walking on her own, so I assumed she had regained her sight. I wondered where Patricia was, and apparently Nina did too.

"We'll just have to go down without her," Fabian replied. "It's too risky to wait around."

"You're right," she nodded in agreement before reaching down into her shirt. A moment later she pulled what appeared to be a large necklace pendant out. I watched in amazement as she put it up to the oven and it began to glow bright red.

"What on Earth?" I looked across to see that Mara was watching with wide eyes. With a loud scraping noise, the oven door retracted, leaving a big enough space for them to go through.

Mara and I watched as they disappeared, leaving the door open (probably for Patricia). I turned to Mara.

"So what now?"

"Now we follow them," she told me, standing up.

"But Mara," I tried to protest, doubting that following our mysterious housemates down a mysterious tunnel that had been opened mysteriously by a mysterious necklace was really the best idea.

"Well?" she turned to me expectantly. "Come on."

And so I really had no choice but to follow her. We got to the end of the secret tunnel to find ourselves in a dusty old room below the house.

"I think this is the cellar," Mara frowned, turning confusedly back toward the secret entry. "But why…? Oh, never mind."

Suddenly we heard another loud scraping noise, not dissimilar to the one that had accompanied the opening of the oven. Mara and I stared in awe as the bookshelf literally began to disappear into the wall.

"I'm sure she'll be fine Nina," we heard Fabian's voice as Nina's shoulder appeared through the newly created opening. "Come on, let's just try without her."

She disappeared back into the secret room, and I let out the breath I didn't know I'd been holding.

After a few moments Mara cautiously approached the opening. She frowned, and I went over to immediately realise what she found so strange.

There was nobody in the room.

"But they were just in here," Mara frowned. "You saw them, right?"

"Hang on, shh," I put my finger to my lips to silence her. I could have sworn I'd heard voices coming from behind one of the panels. I approached it, and sure enough Nina and Fabian's voices could just be made out.

"Well, here goes nothing," I heard Nina say before the pair fell silent. A few moments later I heard her cry out in happiness. "Yes! It worked!"

"Great, now let's get out of here," Fabian said, and I jumped back as the floor below me began to _rotate_.

Once I regained my balance, I looked up to where the panel had been only moments before. I blinked once. Then I blinked again. Somehow Fabian and Nina were now standing there, and there was a bookshelf behind them instead of a plain panel.

We just looked at each other for a few moments.

"What are you guys doing here?" Nina asked eventually, stepping forward. This drew attention to the fact that her hand was intertwined with Fabian's.

She was confused at first by my lack of response, but soon followed my gaze. Blushing, the pair sprung apart, muttering stuttered apologies and trying to look at anything but each other.

"So what _are_ you guys doing here?" Fabian asked, recovering slightly faster than Nina. "Did Patricia let you in?"

"I did nothing of the sort," Patricia assured them from behind us, startling me. When had she come in?

"We just wanted to know what you guys were being so secretive about," Mara defended our actions. "What even is this place? And what's with all the secret doors?"

Nina sighed, running her hand through her hair. "You guys shouldn't have come down here," she told us. "This is bad. _Really_ bad."

 **Uh oh, Mara and Charlotte are getting a little too close to the mystery. What will Sibuna do?**

 **You'll have to wait and see :P**

 **See you next time!**


	20. Chapter 20

**Hey guys!**

 **Sorry I haven't updated in a few days. I was reading over the chapters I had written in advance and I wasn't too keen on them. They seemed rushed and I didn't feel like they were well written, so I decided to take a few days off and then try again.**

 **Anyway, I'm back. I still feel like this is a bit rushed, but it's better than my last attempt and I didn't want to keep you waiting any longer. I know how much I hate it when people take a long time to post new chapters!**

 **Disclaimer: I still don't own House of Anubis.**

 **Warnings: This chapter contains quite strong mentions of self harm and a non-descriptive suicide scene. If this makes you uncomfortable, please don't read.**

 **Anyway, on with the story. Enjoy!**

 _Nina's POV_

This was the worst possible situation we could be in. Now that Mara and Charlotte knew for sure that something was going on, what if their lives were put at risk too? I felt bad enough having dragged Fabian and Patricia into all this.

"Nina, it's going to be okay," Fabian assured me.

"How is it going to be okay?" I snapped back. "If anyone gets hurt, it's going to be on my head."

"Nobody's blaming you for this," he promised me.

"Just because they're not blaming me doesn't mean it's not my fault," I was almost in hysterics now.

Mara and Charlotte were just staring at me, obviously incredible confused.

I turned to them. "Do you guys maybe think you could just go back upstairs and forget any of this ever happened?" I asked hopefully. They just stared back stared back at me. "Or not."

"Nina, what's going on down here?" Mara asked me. "This is all so weird. You can't just expect us to walk away and pretend it was all a dream."

"I know," I sighed, leaning back in resignation before turning to Fabian and Patricia. "So what are we going to do?"

"If we tell you what's going on," Patricia began thoughtfully, "Do you promise not to get involved, no matter what we tell you?"

"That depends," Charlotte frowned. "What _is_ going on?"

Patricia opened her mouth to speak but I jumped in first. "Promise you won't get involved," I told them forcefully. They looked slightly scared, but nodded in agreement.

By the end of our story the two girls looked even more confused than when we began.

"So Victor's actually a 95-year-old who's obsessed with living forever," Mara clarified slowly. "And last year the teachers kidnapped Joy because they thought she was able to mend a broken cup that gives you eternal life when you drink from it."

We all nodded.

"And now the three of you are on a quest to find a lost mask so you can give it to a ghost, or else she's going to kill Fabian and Nina."

Again, the three of us nodded.

"And that's the story you're sticking to?" she asked sceptically.

Part of me was relieved that Mara didn't believe us, but the other part knew that if she didn't believe that what we told her was the truth, she was going to keep following us around. While the first option was bad, the second one was infinitely worse.

"It's the truth," Patricia told her. "Joy knows, Jerome knows, you can even ask Alfie if you can get in touch with him. Well, they only know about the Cup of Ankh. Hang on, maybe we could show them?" she turned to me.

"No," I said quickly. "You guys are in enough danger, I don't want to make it any worse. Anyway, we need to go. It's getting late and we've got school tomorrow."

Reluctantly the others agreed with me, so we all headed up back through the secret passage and into the kitchen. I turned to Mara and Charlotte.

"And you tell _no-one_ , you understand? Not a soul."

They nodded quickly. Satisfied, I made my way up to my bedroom. The others weren't far behind.

That night I had my first nightmare in over a week. I'd been having counselling and they were getting less and less frequent, but the events of the night must have triggered one.

Some of the nightmares were worse than others, but as soon as it began I knew it was going to be a bad one. Unable to do anything about it, I was forced to just let it play out.

 _I watched from above as the door closed, and I knew that Mara, Patricia and I had just left the room. I focussed my sights back on Amber, who turned towards the sound of the closing door. I could see the tears glistening in her eyes._

 _She worked silently, reaching into her top drawer and pulling out two things. One was a folded piece of paper, and I could just read the word 'Nina' which was inscribed on the front in Amber's neat cursive. The other was a shard of glass. Where she had gotten it from I didn't know, but I could see that it had a slight red tinge to it: it had been used before._

 _I didn't want to see what happened next, but my subconscious didn't give me a choice. I watched as she committed the act that would soon kill her, screaming out her name even though I knew she couldn't hear me._

 _"Amber," I pleaded. "Amber, please don't do this. We all love you, we all want you to stay."_

 _But of course she couldn't hear._

 _"Please Amber," I begged. "You don't have to do this, it'll only make things worse."_

 _I knew that she wasn't going to react to what I'd said though, I'd watched this scene play out to many times before. I watched helplessly as her already pale skin became progressively lighter, the blood making morbidly pretty patterns on her pink sheets._

 _"Amber," I begged, sobbing. "Amber!"_

"AMBER!"

I shot up in my bed. Charlotte was already sitting up, and I could see her concern through the darkness.

"Are you okay Nina?" she asked as we heard footsteps outside. "You've been screaming for the last few minutes."

There was a knock at the door.

"Come in," I managed through my tears.

"Is everything okay in here?" I was disappointed when I remembered that Trudy had left and now Vera was acting as housemother. "I heard shouting."

"Nina just had a nightmare," Charlotte said cautiously as a few more faces appeared at the door. I recognised that it was Patricia and Mara.

I continued sobbing while Mara said something that I couldn't hear to Vera. They had a quiet conversation before Mara disappeared in the direction of the stairs.

Patricia turned on the light and came into the room, sitting awkwardly down on Charlotte's bed. "Are you okay Nina?" she asked.

I nodded, but the tears that were still rolling down my face suggested otherwise.

We all just sat in silence, nobody really knowing what to say. Eventually we heard footsteps again, and Mara reappeared in the doorway with Fabian in tow.

"Are you okay Nina?" he asked, concerned. I was vaguely aware of the fact that Jerome and Joy had followed them up, meaning that I had indirectly woken up the entire house.

I sniffed in reply, and after a nod from Vera he came in and sat next to me on my bed. He put his arm around me and I leaned into his shoulder, calming down a little.

"Alright, off to bed with the rest of you," Vera announced. "As for you three," she looked into our room as the others dispersed, "I'll bring up some hot chocolates in a few minutes, okay?"

We nodded, and she left us alone. I turned to Fabian.

"I thought they were getting better," I told him. "I haven't had one of _those_ ones in ages."

He knew what I was talking about. My nightmares could easily be classified into three groups. The first type was where I relived the memory of finding Amber, the second was where I was being told by Amber herself that I had abandoned her and was the reason for her death (which I genuinely believed) and the third one… well, that was the worst type and was the one I had live through that night.

"It's okay," he told me, as I had resumed my sobbing. "It's going to be alright."

I just nodded, because in my heart I knew that he was right and everything would be okay eventually.

It was just going to take us a while to get to that point.

"I just… I hate feeling like this," I sniffed, vaguely aware that Charlotte had just left the room. "I don't want anyone else to die because of me."

"But Amber didn't die because of you," Fabian insisted. "She was sick Nina, you know that. There was nothing you could have done."

I wanted to believe that, I really did. But there had been so many things I could have done. What kind of best friend was I if I couldn't even see that she'd been hurting herself?

"It's not just about that," I sighed, shaking my head. "I'm like a curse, Fabian. Ever since I came here people have been constantly in danger. You guys were all perfectly happy before I came, but now you're cursed and who knows how long it'll be before Patricia is too. Not to mention everything that happened last year with the teachers and Rufus. I just… I wish I'd never come here."

"No, don't say that Nina," Fabian protested. "I'm glad you came. We're all glad you did, every one of us. Life was boring here before you arrived, you've made it interesting."

While what he had said hadn't made me feel any less guilty, it was nice to hear him say that he was glad I'd come to live in Anubis House. The sincerity in his voice told me it was true, and while I didn't believe it most of the time I certainly believed it then.

We just sat there for ages in silence. It wasn't an awkward silence, we were simply enjoying each other's company. Eventually Vera came back with three steaming mugs, but she left quickly. I wondered vaguely where Charlotte had gone, but by that point I was too tired to really care.

 **So there you go! Please leave me a review and tell me what you thought.**

 **Next chapter should be up some time on Saturday.**

 **See you then!**


	21. Chapter 21

**A bit of a filler chapter, I'm sorry. This is quite short, but I needed to get some stuff out of the way before we get to the juicy stuff! The next chapter should be much more exciting.**

 **Also thanks to the people who reviewed, even though I can't read them. Hopefully this bug will be cleared up soon so I can!**

 **Anyway, I don't own House of Anubis.**

 **Enjoy the chapter, and please review!**

* * *

 _Charlotte's POV_

After Vera had left, Nina and Fabian continued to talk quietly. I felt kind of like I was intruding or something, so I excused myself and got up to use the bathroom.

I ended up going into Mara and Patricia's room. The light was on and the two girls were sitting on Mara's bed, talking.

"Hey Charlotte," Mara nodded as I poked my head around the door, apparently not all that surprised to see me. "You can come in if you want."

I thanked her and stepped into the bedroom. I hadn't spent much time in there, but I now realised how much smaller it was than mine and Nina's.

"So, what are you guys talking about?" I realised a little too late that saying that would probably make me seem nosy. Fortunately they didn't seem to think so.

"Just Nina," Mara sighed, collapsing back on her bed and fanning herself. "And this heatwave. This weather is way too hot for September."

I couldn't help but laugh.

"What?" Patricia asked, slightly defensive. I wasn't offended though, I had learnt that this was normal for her.

"So your hottest month's August, right?"

"July," Mara corrected.

"Okay then, July," I nodded. "Ours in January, so your September is equivalent to our March. It's not uncommon for us to have 30 degree days at that time of year, so I have to admit it's kind of strange having you complain about the heat on a day like this."

Mara sat up and looked at me, wide eyed. "So what are your summers like then?"

"Mostly the max will be somewhere between 30 and 40," I shrugged. "But when I was living in Melbourne, we had one day that was almost 47 degrees."

"That's insane," Patricia said. "And that's normal?"

"Not up near the fifties, no," I laughed. "And those kinds of temperatures are only in Summer."

"It must be really weird coming here then," Mara frowned.

I shrugged. "This kind of weather is what we'd usually get in about September, so it feels weirdly normal at the moment. It's gunna be strange having a cold Christmas though."

"I can't imagine having a hot Christmas," she laughed.

We continued talking for a while about some fairly random stuff, and eventually the subject of our conversation was brought back to our various housemates. Even though I'd been living in Anubis House for a few weeks, I didn't really feel like I knew anybody that well.

Mara and Patricia decided it would be a good idea to fill me in.

"Jerome's always been a bit of a prankster," Mara began. "He's toned it down a bit this term though, probably because he doesn't have his partner in crime."

"Amber?" I asked.

She shook her head. "Alfie. They were roommates and best friends, and they were always up to no good. Jerome's also very easy to bribe, he'll do anything for a bit of money. Who's next?"

"What about Joy?" I asked. She had confused me ever since I had first met her, and I was also puzzled by her apparently strained relationship with the other girls in the house.

"Joy's been my best friend since we were thirteen," Patricia told me.

"Before that she was mine," Mara added.

"Before she got removed from the school she was really sweet, and we got along really well," she sighed. "But since she came back… I dunno. It feels like she's not the same person anymore."

"I think part of it is because of Amber," Mara speculated. "She feels left out because she wasn't here when it happened unlike the rest of us. She's also very jealous of Nina."

"Because she used to date Fabian and now he likes Nina?"

Patricia shrugged. "Joy and Fabian never dated, she just likes to think they did. They were close friends, but I don't think he ever actually fancied her. Who else is there?"

"Fabian started here halfway through our first year, which was kind of weird," Mara said. "As you can probably tell he's pretty studious and incredibly shy, which is undoubtedly the reason why he and Nina aren't together yet. Nina's also very good academically, she's here on a scholarship, but at the same type she's not your stereotypical 'smart girl'. She's changed a bit since last year though, she's not as confident and extroverted as she used to be."

I nodded slowly, beginning to make slightly more sense of the way that my housemates interacted with each other. There was one more question I wanted to ask, but I wasn't sure if it was the most tactful thing to do. "You don't have to answer if you don't want to," I said cautiously. "But what was Amber like?"

There was a moment of silence before Patricia spoke up. "She was your typical blonde," she told me. "She was obsessed with clothes and shopping and makeup, you know the type."

"And she was best friends with Nina?" I asked, slightly surprised. Nina was quiet, good at her schoolwork and anything but vain. She never seemed to care whether or not the things she was wearing went well together, and I couldn't remember seeing her put any makeup on other than some eyeshadow and mascara.

"They were an unlikely pair," Mara laughed sadly. "But they clicked well, in a strange kind of way. I think Nina saw a side of her that the rest of us didn't, a side that separated her from other stereotypical blondes."

I nodded, yawning widely.

"It's getting late," Mara sighed, glancing at the clock on her bedside table. "We should get to bed, we've got an algebra test first thing tomorrow."

I nodded and bade the other two goodnight before heading back to my own room.

Nina and Fabian were both asleep, and there was a cold mug of hot chocolate on my bedside table (oh, the irony in that statement).

The overhead light was on, but the other two looked _quite_ comfortable, so I doubted they'd be waking up any time soon. I flicked it off on my way over to my bed, falling asleep before my head even hit the pillow.

* * *

The first thing I noticed when I woke up the next morning was that it was much later than I would usually wake up. It was eight-thirty, and I knew I was going to be late for school. I was confused as to why Nina hadn't woken me up, but one glance in the direction of her bed gave all the explanation I needed. She was still asleep as well.

Resigning to the fact that I was going to be late no matter what, I decided to take my time rather than rush. I made my way down to breakfast at a leisurely pace and was surprised to see that Joy, Jerome and Mara were still at the table.

Mostly I was surprised that Mara was still there, because she would usually have already been at school by that time, and while Jerome was often late, Joy had always finished her breakfast by then.

"Vera convinced Sweetie to let us have first period off," Mara explained in reply to my confused expression. "I hope you don't mind, we turned your alarm clock off so you guys could sleep in."

"That makes sense," I nodded, yawning as I sat down in my usual seat. "I was wondering why I woke up so late."

In the hour that followed we managed to slowly get ready, and by period two we were all at school. Everyone from Anubis House had French, so we made our way to Mrs Andrews' classroom.

I struggled through the lesson, not only because I was still tired but also because I had been having trouble with French ever since I had started at my new boarding school. I had learnt German at my old school in Australia in year seven and eight, but had dropped it as soon as I had been given a chance. I had come in knowing literally no French, so it was hard to keep up with a class of students who had been learning it since they were eleven.

I was relieved when the bell went and it was time for recess. Joy dragged Fabian off somewhere so they could go and study (apparently Mrs Andrews had assigned him to be her 'study buddy' due to the fact that her grades were slipping, much to Nina's disapproval) and the rest of us headed to the drama room.

* * *

The next few days passed relatively uneventfully, not counting the usual disappearances from Nina, Fabian and Patricia and even a few from Jerome and Mara. Victor was in a foul mood, but that was probably because the Frobisher Library had been broken into. Nothing had been taken, but the few weeks I had known Victor for had been enough to show me that he liked to have complete control. I wasn't surprised that he was upset that someone had defied him.

I was woken early on Tuesday morning to find Mara shaking me. I looked over at my alarm clock and groaned.

"Mara, it's _five-thirty_ ," I observed. "I know you like to get up early, but-"

"Just hear me out," she cut me off, speaking quietly to avoid waking Nina. I noticed that she was holding my laptop, and it was open towards her, illuminating her face in the darkness.

"Okay," I sighed, propping myself up on my elbow. "I'm listening."

She grinned and sat down, turning the laptop so I still couldn't see it. To be honest, I was getting curious.

"So you know how I broke up you and your boyfriend and I feel really bad about it?"

I grimaced. "What's done is done Mara, I told you-"

"Well…" she cut me off. "It took a lot of help from Nina and your step-sister, but I managed to convince him that I was exaggerating the truth."

"You did what?" I asked, unable to stop the grin that was forming on my face. "When?"

"Over the weekend," she told me, relaxing. "And he wants to speak to you now."

So that was why she was holding my laptop! Unable to contain my excitement, I grabbed it off her and turned it to face me. There was a video call open and I could clearly see Angus' face.

"Hey," I grinned, squinting at the brightness of my screen.

"Hey Char," he grinned in return.

"I'll leave you tow to it," Mara decided, standing up. "See you at breakfast, Charlotte."

* * *

 **Good news for all you Peddie shippers out there, Eddie's arriving next chapter! How long will it take him to get a jug of liquid poured over him though?**

 **Next chapter will be up on Tuesday. See you then!**


	22. Chapter 22

**Back with another chapter. I hope you enjoy it!**

 **A special shout out goes to houseofanubisfan2, because they took the effort to PM me with their review since they can't be read at the moment. They've also taken the time to review pretty much every chapter of this story, which I really appreciate. So this chapter's for you, houseofanubisfan2! (Ha, that rhymes!)  
**

 **Disclaimer: I don't own House of Anubis.**

* * *

 _Patricia's POV_

By Monday we had made incredible progress in the tunnels. Further exploration had revealed some sort of locked door and a pedestal, and we had soon discovered that in order to retrieve the key, we were required to spell Robert Frobisher-Smythe's full name out of the letters displayed on some old books. With a lot of hard work we'd been able to track down all the books except one, which had been borrowed only a few years ago by someone who called themselves 'DABed'. All we needed to do was work out who this person was and we would finally be able to move further into the tunnels.

Our last class of the day was French with Mrs Andrews. I sat down next to Joy on the desk across from Fabian and Nina, feeling slightly bad that I'd neglected my best friend of three years. She smiled and slid her books across to make room for me.

"Bonjour la classe," Mrs Andrews greeted us, pulling the lid off her whiteboard marker.

"Bonjour Madame Andrews," we gave our routine reply, everyone sounding more than a little bored.

At that moment the door burst open, and Jerome and Mara appeared in the doorway. This wasn't the first occasion they had disappeared together, and to be honest I was kind of curious as to where they had gone.

"Sorry we're late," the pair said in unison. Jerome was carrying a plastic bag, but I couldn't see its contents.

Mrs Andrews frowned disapprovingly at the pair. "Detention, Friday, both of you," she decided.

Jerome and Mara looked at each other. Mara looked like she wanted to cry, and I had known Jerome long enough to be able to see that he was trying to find a way to get them out of their punishment.

"Has anyone told you that your hair looks _fantastic_ today, Mrs Andrews?" he tried to sweet talk her, but she wasn't going to buy it.

"Sit, before I make it Thursday as well," she replied without looking away from the notes she was writing on the board.

Sighing, the pair went and sat down behind Fabian and Nina, diagonal to the desk Joy and I were seated at. "How come sucking up to old Daphne never works?" Jerome sighed wistfully as he got out his textbook.

I noticed Fabian lean over and whisper something to Nina, and at the same time Joy spoke to me.

"Looks like Mara's getting over Mick a little faster than we expected," she observed, raising her eyebrows at me.

I shrugged, not usually one to get involved in relationship dramas. "You really think they're sneaking off to go on secret dates?"

"I wouldn't put it past them," she said. "I mean think about it. What else could they be doing?"

I had to admit that she had a good point. I just rolled my eyes and went back to copying the notes, Joy giggling beside me.

* * *

Everyone cleared out of the room pretty quickly when the bell went, with the exception of Nina and Fabian who were packing up painfully slowly. I couldn't be bothered waiting for them, and seeing as Joy had hurried back to the house to get ready for her study session with Fabian and Mara had also made a hasty retreat with Jerome, I only had one option left.

Admittedly Charlotte and I weren't the best of buddies, but it wasn't like I hated her or anything. I caught up with her in the hallway.

"Looks like we've been ditched," I observed, watching Fabian and Nina finally exit from the classroom, suddenly in a hurry. "Want to walk back together?"

"Sure," Charlotte shrugged, putting one of her books in her bag. "I've just got to go and see Miss Peterson quickly to give her my History assignment, is that okay?"

The corridor was already pretty much empty and I didn't really fancy walking back to the house on my own, so I told her it was fine and together we went in search of the Drama and History teacher.

Our first thought was to check the History room, but it was empty. The next most obvious place to search was the theatre/common room area where the Drama classes were held.

"This teacher of ours sure likes to make things difficult for us," Charlotte sighed when it became obvious that she wasn't there.

I was about to reply when suddenly I tripped over something. It was a boy, who was lying on one of the couches with his feet sticking out over the armrest.

"Stick your feet in, will you?"

He yawned, giving me a dirty look. "You woke me."

It served him right. "Yeah, well student lounges are for lounging, not sleeping," I pointed out. "Clue's in the name."

"I was on a plane for eight hours, and then I was on a train for four, and now I'm in 'Boresville', UK," he groaned. "I don't need a lecture, okay Hermione?"

Charlotte chuckled from beside me, but I was fuming.

"Oh great, that's all we need. Another patronising American whose only reference to the UK is Harry Potter," I sneered, knowing already that I wasn't going to get on with this boy. "Who are you, anyway?"

"Who are you?" he bit back.

"I asked first," I pointed out.

He snorted. "Really?

I decided not to bother. If this kid wanted to be difficult, then I wasn't going to be the one to stop him. I definitely couldn't let him have the last word though. "Next time you trip somebody up, remember it's considered polite to apologise in this country," I told him.

"Do you ever stop talking?" he groaned, clearly not paying attention to what I had just said. "I should call you 'Blabs' or 'Yacker'," he decided. "Yeah, Yacker."

"And maybe I should call you a cab back to the airport," I countered.

He clapped sarcastically. "Devastating."

"As much as I'd love to stand here trading stereotypes, I think I'm gunna go hang somewhere else," I decided to leave the argument for another time. "Come on Charlotte."

I grabbed her by the arm and dragged her towards the doorway. She let out a small squeal of surprise before following me.

"He's pretty cute, huh?" she giggled, nudging me when we were out of earshot of the boy.

"He likes to think he is," I retorted, rolling my eyes.

* * *

Nina and I walked down to breakfast together the next morning. As we headed in the direction of the dining area she explained the progress she and Fabian had made in the tunnels the previous night. They had put the final book into the shelf and apparently a cube, which they were assuming contained the key to the door, had materialised on the previously empty pedestal.

"So do I get to see this weird cube-key?" I asked as we stopped at the base of the stairs.

"I'll show you later," Nina promised me as we heard one of the doors open on the boy's corridor.

"Just five more minutes Fabes," Nina tensed up next to me as Joy's voice echoed through the hallway. "Please?"

"We have to get to school Joy," Fabian protested. "Your essay's fine, I'm sure Mrs Andrews will love it."

She giggled. "You think?"

He didn't say anything else, but as the pair came into view we could see that he was nodding. He looked more than a little uncomfortable as Joy grabbed onto his arm and dragged him into the living room.

Nina sighed from beside me. "For some reason I've lost my appetite," she grimaced, making to go back up the stairs.

I just rolled my eyes, grabbing her arm and dragging her into breakfast in a similar fashion to the way Joy and Fabian had just entered.

Joy was sitting in my usual seat next on Fabian's right, so I sat down next to Mara instead, meaning that the empty seat was right between me and Charlotte (we always had one seeing as there were only seven people in the house). I would soon discover that this had been a mistake.

I looked up from my plate to get the cereal and was surprised to see that the boy I had tripped over the previous afternoon was standing in the doorway. It wasn't hard to figure out what was going on.

Oh no.

The other's quickly followed my gaze, and soon everyone was looking curiously at the new boy.

"Please tell me you're not staying here," I scowled at him.

He just laughed to himself, helping himself to the empty seat without replying to me. I could see that Mara and Joy were looking at him dreamily, and even Charlotte and Nina were giggling, much to my surprise.

I watched curiously as Nina sent a glance in the direction of Fabian and Joy before standing up. "Would you like some OJ?" she asked the boy, offering it to him.

"Finally, someone who speaks proper English," he announced, holding up her glass so she could pour him a drink. "You're the best thing I've heard since I got here."

I couldn't help but scoff, and at the same time Fabian choked on his piece of toast. Nina giggled, but I couldn't help but feel like it was a bit forced.

"When _did_ you get here?" Fabian asked once he had recovered. "I got a shock when I woke up and saw your mattress on the floor."

Jerome made a noise of agreement through his mouthful of cereal.

"I can imagine," I scoffed.

The boy just rolled his eyes before answering Fabian's question. "Yesterday, when I had the pleasure of meeting Yacker here. Speaking of which, who do we have here?"

It was my turn to roll my eyes as the rest of the girls at the table quickly said their names.

"Hey, I'm Eddie," he said, reaching out and putting his arm around Charlotte's shoulders. "And nobody told me that English girls were so cute."

"Oh please," Jerome scoffed.

Charlotte seemed to snap out of her trance, and swiftly removed Eddie's arm from her shoulders. "I have a boyfriend," she told him.

He just laughed, reaching out and taking three pieces of toast off the top of the pile.

"So what made you change schools, Eddie?" Nina asked as she sat back down.

If looks could kill, Eddie would have been very much dead and Fabian would have been wanted for murder.

"Ah, let's see," he sighed, thinking. "I got into some fights, and then, you know, flunked my classes, uh… and then the principal hated me 'cause I said his daughter was cute, but she totally was."

Everyone giggled, but I'd had enough. I stood up. "Couldn't you have done us all a favour and gone to another school in the state?"

"Patricia!" Joy exclaimed, but I was already out of the room.

I went up to my room and got my bag, and I got back into the entrance hall just in time to see Victor confronting Eddie.

"Ah, Edison, I trust you slept well," he said.

I would have wondered why Victor was being so uncharacteristically nice, but I was too caught up in the fact that this kid's name was 'Edison'. What kind of name was that? I almost felt sorry for him ('almost' being the operative word).

"Like a log," Eddie replied through a mouthful of… whatever he was eating. "And my friends call me 'Eddie'."

"Don't speak to me with your mouth full!" Victor demanded, attracting the attention of some of our other housemates. "Show some respect!"

"We'll just stick with 'Edison'," Eddie decided, smirking.

"You were out until after ten o'clock last night," our caretaker observed. "Please explain."

Eddie folded his arms across his chest. "Well, Victor, I was out with my…" he trailed off, hesitating as he looked over at us. "… _relative_ ," he finished. "I didn't think I needed permission."

"Well you do," Victor told him. "In future please get it. You will find your stay here is a lot more pleasant if you observe a few basic rules." With that he turned to face the rest of us. "Run along," he told us. "Nothing to see here."

Exchanging confused glances, the rest of us made our way out of the house and headed over to school.

* * *

 **So there you go! Thanks for reading, and please review.**

 **The next chapter will be up next Wednesday (as in the 13th of January). I know it's a while to wait but we're getting new carpet, so I have to help pull up the old stuff and also my laptop will be packed away so I won't be able to post.**

 **Anyway, see you then!**


	23. Chapter 23

**Hi all!**

 **If you're sitting in some cool place right now as you read this then I envy you. Right now I'm sitting under the air con drinking ice water in the 44 degree heat. That's right, 44 degrees Celsius, which I believe is equivalent to about 111 degrees Fahrenheit. Curse you Melbourne!**

 **Anyway, in answer to the question from the guest reviewer, I'm not 100% sure of the exact chapter Peddie will be getting together. I'm still playing around with ideas for the next few chapters at the moment, but I'll let you know when I've worked it out. Now that I know you want them together I'll try to make it a priority (as much as my plot allows it to be).**

 **Speaking of the plot, I've been thinking a lot about where I'm going with this recently, and I've got two different ideas as to what could happen. The first stays relatively true to the actual series, whereas the second one deviates from the script quite a bit. The mystery is still the same, but there's a lot more relationship and friendship drama. I don't want to give away the plot by explaining more, but I'd really like to know which one you'd prefer. I personally like the second one (mainly because I'm not a fan of stories that are pretty much identical to the actual series with another character added in) but if you guys would prefer the whole thing to be similar to the way series two actually played out then I'll write it that way. Let me know what you'd prefer!**

 **This chapters kind of short, but like I said in the previous chapter I've been helping pull up the carpet in my house (which is surprisingly fun to do). I haven't had a lot of time to write, so this is the best I could come up with.**

 **Anywho, on with the chapter!**

Jerome's _POV_

"Donkeys, Mr Sweet. Poor, mistreated donkeys."

So I'd officially gone crazy. Insane. Bonkers. Barking mad. Or at least that's what Mr Sweet thought, if the look on his face was anything to go by.

Although admittedly, he probably wasn't accustomed to his students barging into his office in donkey costumes. I wouldn't have been surprised if this was the first time that had happened to him.

"Look at Eurika here," I handed a photo to my bewildered headmaster. "His poor, neglected face. His sanctuary badly needs new facilities, like stables, and… better hats."

You're probably wondering why I was suddenly so invested in aiding a charitable cause such as sick donkeys.

The truth was that I needed money, and I needed it fast. I'd just gotten the bill from the PI that I had hired to find my father, and it had come to a high and mighty total of 350 pounds, which was an amount that I certainly didn't have.

"Jerome, what is it you _want_?" Mr Sweet asked, looking me in the eye.

He knew me too well.

"I _want_ permission to run 'Donkey Day', Mr Sweet," I replied. "All the money raised on the day will be going to a _very_ good cause."

Very good indeed.

Mr Sweet looked thoughtful for a moment, a small smile beginning to form on his face. "Very well Jerome, you have my blessing."

"Thank you _so_ much Mr Sweet," I said, taking a few steps in the direction of the door. "On behalf of the donkeys, of course."

"Of course," he agreed, chuckling to himself and shaking his head before going back to his work.

* * *

"So is everyone signed up for a Donkey Day challenge?" I asked the next morning, looking down at my clipboard as I paced the common room. I stopped next to Mara, Patricia and Charlotte, who had all been standing against the wall chatting. "Patricia, I can't see your name down," I said. She folded her arms across her chest in defiance. "Think of those poor, disadvantaged donkeys."

I saw her glance over at the other two.

"Oh, go on," Charlotte prompted her nudging her lightly. "It'll be fun."

"Okay," Patricia sighed, rolling her eyes and turning to me. "Sign me up for the 'Wonky Donkey'."

I grinned in success. "That's a fiver entrance fee, please," I told her, holding out my bucket.

She pulled out her purse and withdrew a five pound note.

"Since when did you become so interested in the welfare of donkeys?" Mara asked suspiciously as Patricia paid her money.

I had to think fast. Mara was very clever, and I knew it wouldn't take her long to figure out that there was something suspicious going on. "Ever since summer break, when I was eight," I told her matter-of-factly. "I saw a donkey on the beach being ridden by a _sumo wrestler_." Okay, so maybe I lied about the first part, but I _had_ gotten the idea from an internet meme of a sumo wrestler riding a donkey. It was pretty hilarious. "I can't get it out of my head," I continued dramatically. "I promised myself that one day I would save his people."

I made a quick getaway to avoid any more questions, and soon bumped into the latest addition to our house.

"Hey, new boy," I said. "Can I put your name down for a Donkey Day challenge?"

"What about you?" he retorted in his annoying, bad-boy way. "I see you're hassling everyone else but not doing a lot yourself."

"He has got a point, Jerome," Joy piped up from the couch, where she was sitting with Fabian.

"Whose side are you on?" I asked defensively.

Eddie laughed slightly. "I'll agree to do a donkey challenge if you do," he told me.

I hesitated, but I knew I really needed the money. "Okay," I agreed.

"Great," he nodded. "I get to pick the challenge."

"Now, hang on," I tried to protest, but he cut me off.

"Donkey Diner," he decided. "If you can eat _three gallons_ of creamed carrot, I will personally sponsor you one hundred dollars."

Three gallons of creamed carrot? Who did that kid think he was? Then again…

" _A hundred_ dollars?"

He seemed to think I was demanding more money, because he instantly raised the price. "One hundred and fifty then. Deal?"

"Done," I replied immediately, putting my hand out to shake his. What was I getting myself into?

"Hey Jerome," Patricia piped up as he walked away. "I still don't have a partner for the Wonky Donkey."

I looked over at Eddie and suddenly got a great idea. "Yes you have," I told her. "It's Eddie!"

He looked up in surprise. "Me?"

"Him?" Patricia protested at the same time.

I smirked, knowing how much the pair hated each other. This was going to be very interesting.

"You'll bond," I assured them. "See? Donkey Day is already bringing people together."

She just glared at him. Who knew messing with people could be this fun?

My phone beeped in my pocket as I got a message. The smile slid off my face when I realised it was from Roper.

 _I require payment today._

I glanced around quickly to make sure that no one was watching me before heading out of the room in the direction of the chair on the edge of the school grounds where I was going to meet the detective.

* * *

"Is this some kind of a joke?" Roper asked as I put the seventy pounds I had already raised into his hands. "You owe me more than this, son."

"And you will get the rest when Donkey Day is over," I promised him.

"Jerome?" I looked up in surprise to see that Mara was standing behind me.

"Mara!" I said in surprise, trying to act as casual as possible.

"What's going on?" she asked, folding her arms across her chest and taking a few steps towards us.

"He's paying his debts love, that's what," Roper told her.

I buried my face in my hands, preparing myself for what was coming next.

"Is that donkey money?" Mara turned to me, clearly upset and angry.

"It better not be," he frowned, taking a better look at the cash I had just handed him. Neither of us were really paying attention though.

"I knew it. Donkey Day is just one big scam, isn't it?" she accused.

"Mara, I can explain," I told her, but she wouldn't hear of it.

"How could you do it to those sick donkeys?" she asked. "Do you want to end up like your dad?"

That was a pretty low blow, considering I'd just found out that my father was in prison. Mara was feeling anything but guilty though.

"There are no sick donkeys," I told her shamefully, avoiding meeting her eye.

She was stunned to silence for a moment. "Well… find some then," she demanded eventually. "Or I let the _donkey_ out of the bag."

With that she turned on her heel and marched away.

"Mara, wait," I called, following after her and leaving the detective with the money.

* * *

That night Mara wasn't at supper.

"What did you say to her?" Joy asked me as she sat down at the table.

"Why do you just assume it was me?" I asked defensively. "Have you even thought that maybe she's just not hungry?"

"She always hides up in her room when she's upset," Nina pointed out as she reached for the plate of vegetables. "Like when Mick left, or after Amber died."

"Who's Amber?" Eddie asked through a mouthful of food. "Her dog?"

A shocked silence fell over the table. To everyone's surprise it was Nina who spoke.

"Amber was one of our housemates," she told him stiffly. "She died last year."

"Oh," was all Eddie could manage, and I saw Patricia reach for the orange juice before pushing her chair back. This wasn't going to be pretty. "Sorry, I… didn't know."

"Yeah?" Patricia spat.

"Patricia," Fabian said with a warning tone, but we all knew it wasn't going to do any good. Patricia had made her mind up.

"Well maybe next time you should try and be a little more tactful," she said, ignoring him.

We all watched as Eddie was engulfed in a waterfall of orange juice. He just sat there, shocked for a moment. "Well, I guess I deserved that," he decided eventually. The rest of us watched in amusement as he continued his meal, not even bothering to dry himself off.

"Anyway," Nina said eventually, turning back to me. "What did happen? Mara wouldn't tell us anything."

"I… It doesn't matter," I told her, realising that if I explained myself there would be many more questions raised than I was willing to answer. "But yes, I probably made her upset."

"Did you break up with her?" Joy asked, smirking slightly.

I turned to her, confused. "Wouldn't we actually have to be dating for that to happen?" I pointed out.

"So you're _not_ going off on secret dates every time the two of you sneak off together," she clarified sceptically. "Yeah right."

"We're really not," I assured her. "In case you've forgotten, Mara's still hung up over Mick."

"So you would be dating if she wasn't?" she inferred from this statement.

I sighed in frustration, not feeling at all comfortable with the topic of conversation. "You guys are impossible," I announced, drawing back my chair and taking my plate into the kitchen, desperate to be anywhere but there.

 **Thanks for reading! Please leave your love (or hate) in the form of a review, they make me happy!**

 **Next chapter should be up on Saturday. See you then!**


	24. Chapter 24

**So...**

 **I know it's been ages, and I'm really sorry. I wish I had an excuse, but all I can say is that I've been suffering from a debilitating case of writers block.**

 **Anyway, I'm back! Thank you so much for all your reviews last chapter and your opinions on where you want the story to go next.**

 **Enough of my chattering. Let's get this ball rolling. See you at the bottom!**

 **Disclaimer: I don't own House of Anubis.**

* * *

 _Fabian's POV_

There were many reasons that Amun Academic Boarding School was a one-of-a-kind school.

One of them was that they had an amazing academic program and always achieved high result in the overall rankings.

Another was that they had an outstanding drama and performing arts faculty that went above and beyond to help its students achieve greatness.

There was also no other school in the world that would host a 'Donkey Day'.

I was honestly kind of confused about Jerome's whole ' _make a donkey happy_ ' fundraiser, but like everyone else in the house I had decided to just go along with it. I had known Jerome for quite a long time, and if there was one thing I was sure of it was that it was best not to get in the way of any of his big ideas.

Nina and I walked over to school in silence, and I could tell that she was deep in thought. She had her thinking frown on, which I had learnt was reserved especially for Sibuna mysteries.

"You okay?" I asked, concerned.

"What?" she looked confused for a moment, and I immediately felt bad for breaking her train of thought. "Oh, yeah, I'm fine. Just thinking."

I nodded and we continued walking, not breaking the silence again until we had reached the lounge. Nina nudged me and nodded her head in the direction of Eddie and Patricia.

"I give them a month," she said, watching the pair bickering over something as Eddie tied the rope around their legs. "Tops."

"You think?" I asked sceptically. It was obvious that they were going to end up together, but I was doubtful that a month would be enough time for Patricia to give up her stubborn ways. "I say two."

She took a moment to consider my opinion. "And if you're wrong?" she asked finally, turning this into a bet.

"Loser does the winner's chores for a week," I decided. "Deal?"

"Deal," Nina agreed, shaking my outstretched hand. "Prepare to lose."

I just rolled my eyes and the two of us made our way over to where Jerome and Mara were having a heated debate over something or other. Nina and I had both opted to go around collecting donations rather than participate in any challenges, so we needed to collect our buckets and regulation donkey ears.

"Where to?" Nina asked as she slipped the headband on (is it weird that she managed to look even more adorable than usual dressed as a donkey?).

"Maybe we should start by just walking around the corridors?" I suggested.

"Sounds like a plan," she agreed, picking up her bucket. "We can go out through the Science and Humanities area and then up past the Art room to the English department."

I nodded, picked up my own bucket and followed her out of the room.

* * *

"And then he just walked in like nothing had happened," Nina finished through a fit of giggles.

"Seriously?" I asked incredulously, not entirely sure whether or not to believe the story she had just told me. At the same time I couldn't really have cared less whether or not there was any truth behind the tale, because it was just so good to hear Nina laughing again.

"Seriously," she confirmed, still laughing. We were sitting in the student lounge eating our lunches. After a moment her gaze shifted onto something behind and her smile faded.

I turned around to see what she was looking at and came face to face with Joy.

"Guess what?" she asked me excitedly. "Sweetie's asked you and I to organise the grand opening ball!"

"That's… great, Joy," I said, trying to meet Nina's gaze at the same time. However she was staring determinedly at her bread roll, face set into a scowl.

For reasons unbeknownst to me, Joy and Nina had never gotten along. I figured it was probably something trivial and unimportant, because if there was anything that having three sisters had taught me it was that girls often fall out over the smallest of things.

Nina scraped her chair back. "I'll leave you guys to it then," she decided, grabbing her lunch and standing up.

"No, Nina," I called after her, not really wanting to be left alone with Joy any more than was absolutely necessary.

"It's fine, really," she promised with a small smile. "I have to talk to Patricia anyway."

She turned around and headed in the direction of the corridor before I could protest again.

"So," Joy sat down next to me as she walked away. "I was thinking we should go for a theme. Classy Venetian or famous dead people?" Before I had a chance to reply, she continued, "See, I like the first one, because…"

She kept talking, but I had kind of tuned out. To be perfectly honest, organising balls wasn't really my forte, and while I understood the reason Joy had been asked to help I wasn't really sure what Mr Sweet expected to gain from picking me as well.

"Fabes?" I was snapped back into reality by Joy's use of her slightly annoying nickname for me.

"Yeah?" I tried to make it seem like I'd been paying attention, but I knew I was fighting a losing battle.

"You're not listening," she sighed, half amused and half frustrated.

"I'm sorry," I told her, trying to come up with an excuse for my lack of attention. "I've just… got a lot on my mind at the moment."

"You need to relax a little," Joy decided. "You worry too much. Hey, there's this Shia Labeouf marathon on at the cinemas this weekend, it could be just what you need. We could go together."

Unfortunately for Joy, I saw through her oh-so-subtle plan to get me to go on a date with her. Unfortunately for me, I was too scared to say no in case I hurt her feelings. Instead, I came out with a weak and indecisive, "Maybe?"

"Adorable," I started at the sound of a voice behind me. I turned around to see Nina standing there, arms folded across her chest and forehead creased with a small frown.

Great.

Just great.

I had to think quickly, because the last thing that I wanted was for Nina to think that I wanted to date Joy. Because I really didn't. I wanted to date Nina (not that I would ever admit that to her, of course).

"Actually, I can't," I said, making up an excuse on the spot. "My… sister's coming to visit."

Both girls looked at me, slightly surprised.

"Which one?" Nina asked, becoming slightly less defensive.

At the same time, Joy put in with, "You have a sister?"

I watched as Nina shot Joy a triumphant smirk, and suddenly something Jerome had said came back to me.

 _"Joy and Nina are both crazy for you."_

Was it possible… that they were competing for _my friendship_?

"Annika," I said in reply to Nina's question, saying the first of my sisters that came to my head. I turned to Joy to reply to her question, but before I had a chance to open my mouth Nina jumped in.

"He actually has two," she told her, and I could detect a slight smirk on her face. Anyone who didn't know her as well as I did would have missed it. "He also has a niece, and she's _so_ adorable."

While Nina had never actually met my niece and I was fairly sure I'd never shown her a photo, I wasn't going to pick her up on it. To be honest, I just wanted to move away from the topic of conversation as quickly as possible. Talking about my family had always made me feel uncomfortable.

"Anyway," Nina turned to me, a subtle look of guilt replacing her previous expression. "I was thinking about heading over to the library to see if Jasper or Trudy wanted to give a donation. I'll catch up with you later, okay?"

I frowned. "Are you sure you don't want me to come with?"

She looked slightly surprised, like she hadn't expected me to offer to come with her. "You can if you want to," she shrugged, glancing quickly at Joy before back over at me.

I leaned over and picked up my bucket before standing up. "See you later, Joy," I nodded, dragging Nina out of the room before Joy had a chance to protest.

We spent a large portion of the walk over to the library in silence, and I was beginning to sense a recurring theme. This time, however, Nina couldn't seem to keep still, fiddling with her hands, then her hair, then the hem of her skirt.

"I'm sorry," she said eventually, breaking the somewhat tense silence.

"About what?" I asked, genuinely confused.

"I know you hate talking about your family," she shrugged, hesitating slightly. "I shouldn't have told Joy that stuff."

To be honest, I hadn't even given it a second thought. "It's fine," I promised her. It really wasn't a bit deal.

"No, it's not," she sighed. "You trusted me when you told me that stuff, and I just blew it all over some stupid fight with Joy. I really am sorry."

"So you two are fighting?" I asked, taking the opportunity to try and find out what was going on between the two of them.

Nina shrugged, apparently regretting her choice of words. "I don't know. I wouldn't call it fighting exactly. She doesn't like me, I don't like her, we get on living like that."

I frowned. "So there's no particular reason that you don't like each other?" I clarified, confused.

Nina opened her mouth as if to reply, but quickly closed it again. "I guess not," she shrugged eventually, but I had a strong feeling that she was lying.

By this point we had reached the Frobisher Library. Nina entered first, and I was close behind.

"Wow," Nina breathed in amazement, looking around the building. "It looks amazing."

I nodded in agreement. "We just came by to see if either of you wanted to donate to Donkey Day," I explained in reply to Jasper and Trudy's expectant faces.

"Of course we would," our cheery ex-housemother smiled, reaching into her pocket and pulling out a five pound note. "Come on Jasper," she turned to my godfather as she placed it into Nina's bucket. "Make a donkey happy."

Jasper reached for his wallet as Nina wandered off to have a look at some of the exhibits. It didn't surprise me that one in particular drew her attention. "Is this it?" she asked. "The replica Mask of Anubis?"

"Yes," Jasper nodded, handing me a handful of silver coins.

"It's beautiful," Nina breathed, mesmerised by it.

"Imagine what the original must look like," he agreed, taking a step closer to have a proper look himself.

"Except according to you the original doesn't even exist," I pointed out, frowning.

"Yes, well perhaps we shall never know," Jasper brushed over his lack of consistent views.

We stood there for a few more moments, admiring the display. Eventually Nina drew her eyes away, albeit reluctantly.

"Did you ever get in touch with that internet colleague you mentioned?" she turned to Jasper. "The… Collector?"

Jasper suddenly became a bit flustered. "No," he replied hastily, stuttering slightly. "Dead end, I'm afraid. Now if you'll excuse us, we have a lot of work to do, so…"

I locked eyes with Nina, and I could tell that we'd both gotten the hint. Not wanting to stay where we weren't welcome, we headed for the door.

"Bye," I called back to my godfather as we left, and I couldn't help but feel confused by his uncharacteristic behaviour.

What was going on?

* * *

 **So there you have it. Not my best work ever, but it could have been a lot worse.**

 **Anyway, seeing as I've taken so long to update I thought I'd give you a little preview for the next chapter:**

 ** _"Patricia, where have you been?" Mara asked me when I got back to my room. "I was getting really worried."_**

 ** _"The cellar," I replied grumpily. "Nina's oh-so-brilliant plan didn't include a way to get me out as well as her and Fabian."_**

 ** _"Speaking of Nina, Fabian and cellars," she frowned, ignoring the fact I'd just admitted that we'd been snooping around down there again. "The weirdest thing happened before. I swear I heard Victor telling Vera that he'd caught Nina and Fabian_ snogging _down there."_**

 ** _"You don't want to know," I advised her, turning off my light and collapsing into bed without bothering to get changed._**

 **The next chapter is almost finished, but my summer holidays finished a week ago so updates may bit a little slower than they have been in the past (not as slow as this one was though, sorry guys!). I should have another chapter up before the weekend.  
**

 **See you soon!**


	25. Chapter 25

**So the good news is that I'm actually not dead. Surprise!  
**

 **I know it's taken me forever to upload this chapter, and I'm sorry. Basically school got in the way.**

 **Anyway, I'll spare you a long author's note and just get on with the story. Enjoy!**

 **Disclaimer: Nope, still don't own it.**

* * *

Patricia's _POV_

Unlike most of my housemates, I was not blessed with the liberty of being able to eat Vera's Saturday morning pancakes at my own leisure. While most of the Anubis residents were in the dining room basking in their creamy, maple syrupy goodness, Nina, Fabian and I were down in the cellar on the grown-up, deadly, Ancient Egyptian version of an Easter egg hunt.

Not that I particularly hated being a part of Sibuna. On the contrary, I loved the fact that I was doing my part to put some good in the world, I loved the adventure and the thrill that only a near death experience can give you. What I didn't love were the inconvenient hours that you committed to as a part of becoming one of the gang.

"It fits!" Nina exclaimed in joy as Fabian slid the newly reassembled cube into the opening. We all stood back as there was a loud creaking and the door slid open. "Let's see what's down tunnel number two."

The three of us made our way cautiously onwards. "Sarah's dad sure had a thing for catacombs," Fabian observed.

"You're not wrong there," I agreed distastefully, looking around at the gloomy interior decorations as we walked.

We continued onwards in silence before Nina came to an abrupt halt.

"What's that sound?" she frowned, glancing nervously around the small area we were in. There was a definite creaking noise coming from somewhere, but it was hard to pinpoint the exact cause or location. More than likely it was just the pipes, we were underneath the house after all.

Ignoring the noise, we continued walking through the tunnels for a moment, growing more and more disappointed as we progressed. Where was the next task? I was just wondering how long we were going to have to be walking before Nina let out a cry and the floor appeared to give way beneath her. Fabian quickly reached out and grabbed onto her hand, gripping her wrist tightly as he pulled her to safety.

"That was close," I breathed, taking a cautious step forward to get a better look at the massive hole Nina had almost fallen down. As hard as I tried, I couldn't see the bottom, so I searched the floor for a stone before throwing it over the edge. We all listened intently as it fell down the seemingly never-ending hole.

"That's a long way down," Fabian observed, and it took all my effort not to smirk when I noticed that his hand was still intertwined with Nina's. Instinctively we all took a step away from the edge.

"I definitely hear something back there," Nina broke the silence.

"Me too," I had to agree with her. The noise was beginning to concern me. "Let's go."

The three of us hurried back through the tunnel to find that one particular part of the ceiling had lowered quite considerably and was less than a meter away from the floor.

"We're going to be trapped," Nina cried as we dropped down onto ours hands and knees.

Without even thinking I scrambled underneath, and the other two weren't far behind. Once we were all safely on the other side we stood, panting as we watched the ceiling reclaimed its rightful place above us.

"Look," Nina frowned after a moment, and I turned to her to see that she was looking at the floor. "There's some kind of pattern."

"Traverse the grid with step or hop," an eerie voice came out of nowhere right on cue, as if in answer to Nina's statement. "Follow the sequence, do not stop. All must complete the hopscotch test before the ceiling stays at rest."

We all stood in silence for a moment, processing what Robert's disembodied voice had just told us.

"I can't hopscotch to save my life," Fabian said eventually, looking more than a little concerned.

"Well Fabian," Nina sighed, and I couldn't help but admire her attempt at a little bit of humour in the situation we were in. "You might have to."

As the three of us stared at the grid, I couldn't help but think about how much easier this task would be with Amber on board. I had vivid memories of trying to beat her in our informal school hopscotch championships when I was eleven, but none of us ever could. She would have been able to complete this task with ease.

Without saying anything, I picked up a pebble off the floor and turned towards the grid. Fabian looked at me, confused, but Nina seemed to have caught on to what I was doing. She gave a nod and I threw the stone.

It was true that I wasn't known for my gentle temperament, but it hadn't always been that way. As much as I hated to admit it, I had once been pretty decent at hopscotch.

'Had once been' being the key phrase there. My attempt was short lived. I quickly stepped back off the grid and the ceiling once again began to move towards the ground. Only once I had retaken my place next to Nina and Fabian did it retract back into the roof.

"I don't understand," I frowned, confused. "I did it right, you saw me."

"It was pretty much textbook," Nina agreed, turning towards Fabian, who was frowning and looking intently at the grid.

"I don't know a lot about hopscotch," he said, "but those are animal symbols, not numbers."

"Fabian's right," I agreed, taking a closer look and realising what he had just pointed out for the first time. I couldn't believe that none of us had realised earlier, as it was now obvious that not only were the symbols different, but so was the entire shape of the grid. "Is that a duck?"

"Take a picture," Nina told Fabian, who got out his phone and did as she asked. "Okay, let's just call it a day. We need to clear our heads."

"But even if we do learn the sequence, what about that chasm? How do we get over that?" Fabian pointed out.

"And how many more traps are there going to be between us and the mask? Ten? A hundred?" Nina continued to dampen the mood.

"We just need to deal with one task at a time," I suggested, for once the only person who _wasn't_ being pessimistic. "For now we should get back upstairs before we're missed."

In silent agreement with my statement, Nina turned around and began to make her way back through the tunnels. Fabian was close behind her and I was bringing up the rear.

We headed back through the secret room and into the cellar. Just as the bookcase slid back into place the main cellar door opened and light spilled into the otherwise dark and musky room.

"Is there somebody down there?" Victor's voice echoed against the walls.

The three of us looked at each other, wide eyed. What were we going to do?

It was Nina who came up with the plan (she couldn't lie to save her life, so this wasn't going to end well). She silently gestured for me to go and hide in the corner before turning to Fabian.

"You trust me, right?" she asked quietly, taking a step closer to him as we heard footsteps from the top of the stairs. Despite the sense of dread I was beginning to feel at leaving the cover story to Nina, I couldn't help but feel slightly curious about what she was going to come up with.

Fabian nodded in reply to her question, evidently as confused as I was. I watched as Nina took a deep breath, and before poor Fabian could register what was happening they were kissing.

And when I say kissing, I mean a full on snogging session.

It took all my effort to stop myself from snickering as I looked towards the door. The expression on Victor's face was priceless.

He just stood there for a moment, apparently shocked, before clearing his throat. Nina and Fabian broke apart, both blushing and trying to get their heads around what had just happened.

"What is the meaning of this?" Victor asked once he had recovered. "How did you get down here?"

Nina didn't miss a beat. "It's just so hard to find a good place to make out around here," she sighed. "I mean we tried the living room, but Mara was in there and too be honest I think she's still a bit touchy because of the whole Mick thing, and Vera was in the kitchen and-"

"Miss Martin," Victor cut her off.

"Yeah?"

"Get out," he told her bluntly. "And don't let me catch either of you down here again."

I was impressed that they had managed to get off without any punishment, but as they left the room I had more important things to worry about.

Like the fact that Victor had not left the cellar.

I held my breath as I watched him approach the bookcase, cursing silently when I realised that they hadn't had a chance to properly turn all the numbers back. Apparently Victor noticed this too, and he immediately realised what it was and started trying out various codes.

After a minute or so he gave up, muttering about 'those miscreants' as he made his way back out of the cellar, locking the door behind him.

Locking me _in_.

* * *

I guess it was wishful thinking to expect for Nina and Fabian to come and get me straight away. After about half an hour it became clear that they were nowhere nearby, so I began to try to find my own way out. These attempts, however, turned out to be fruitless, and as the hours passed I began to worry that I was going to have to spend the entire night in the cellar. To make matters worse, my mobile was very quickly running out of battery.

 _11:57am, 24%._

 _12:33pm, 16%._

 _1:04pm, 9%._

I was getting impatient, so I decided to send Nina another message.

 _Where r u? Im startin alfie went crazy down here last year!_

I pressed the send button and watched as it joined its 15 brothers and sisters that had been sent since I'd been left alone down in the cellar, but once again there was no reply.

 _1:30, 5%._

 _1:35, 4%._

 _1:48, 2%._

 _1:51, 1%._

I groaned and leaned back against the wall as my screen went black suddenly feeling even more trapped.

After my phone had gone dead I started to lose track of time very quickly (or at least it felt quick, as I was having trouble keeping track of time it was hard to tell). The minutes all began to blend into each other, and after what seemed like forever in only an hour or so I was surprised and relieved to hear Victor performing his nightly ritual upstairs.

"It's ten o'clock," he announced to the house loudly and clearly. "You have five minutes precisely and then I want to hear a pin… drop."

I sighed, leaning back against the wall and wondering how long it was going to be before I was going to be able to get out of there.

* * *

"Patricia? Patricia?"

I groaned and rolled over on the cold stone floor as I opened my eyes, squinting to try and see whoever was speaking to me through the darkness. Eventually I was able to make out Nina's form standing over me.

"What's the time?" I asked groggily, sitting up.

"Eleven-thirty," Nina replied, and I could definitely detect a hint of sheepishness in her voice. "I would have come down earlier, but Vera's been in the kitchen all day, and…" she shrugged, having nothing else to say.

"And you couldn't have replied to one of my texts to tell me that?" I asked, annoyed. I was tired and grumpy, and I _really_ needed to use the toilet.

"I would have," she assured me. "It's just that I left my phone in Fabian's room before we came down here."

"And let me guess," I replied sarcastically. "Victor was standing in the downstairs corridor for the entire _twelve hours_ that I was down here watching the boys' door like a hawk."

"It wasn't Victor I was worried about," Nina said, looking down and biting her lip. Her tone had become much softer, and it made me back down a little. "It was Fabian."

"Wait, what?" All the annoyance was gone from my voice, and it had been replaced with confusion.

She hesitated for a moment before saying, "I… I'm scared I've ruined everything, Patricia."

"What do you mean?" I asked.

Nina opened her mouth to reply, but then shook her head. "It doesn't matter, I'm probably just being stupid. Anyway, we'd better get to bed before Victor catches us down here _again._ I'm not so sure we'll be able to use the same excuse."

I rolled my eyes at her attempt at a joke before the two of us made our way back out through the secret entrance. We crept up the stairs as silently as we could and parted ways once we got to our corridor.

"Patricia, where have you been?" I was surprised to see that Mara was still awake. "I was getting worried.

"The cellar," I replied grumpily. "Nina's oh-so-brilliant plan didn't include a way to get me out as well as her and Fabian."

"Speaking of Nina, Fabian and cellars," she frowned, ignoring the fact I'd just admitted that we'd been snooping around down there again. "The weirdest thing happened before. I swear I heard Victor telling Vera that he'd caught Nina and Fabian _s_ _nogging_ down there."

"You don't want to know," I advised her, turning off my light and collapsing into bed without bothering to get changed.

Little did I know that that night would mark the end of an era. Soon things would look very different at Anubis House.

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 **So there it is! I hope you enjoyed it. Please leave a review to show how much you care!  
**

 **I've decided to give you another little sneak peek at the next chapter.**

 ** _"Jerome," I said, tilting my head to one side. "Shouldn't you be in there supporting and defending your_ girlfriend _?"_**

 **I know what you're thinking: since when did Jerome get a girlfriend? You'll have to wait and see to find out!  
**


	26. Chapter 26

**SURPRISE! I'm actually** ** _not_** **dead.**

 **I know it's been forever since I last updated, but I've been super busy and on top of that I've had a serious case of writers block. I know this chapter's not long, but I had to get** ** _something_** **up.**

 **Anyway, I have kind of having trouble writing a chunk of the story, because as it turns out drama is not my forte. I do apologise for the time lapse, but my earlier drafts of this chapter, which took place earlier, was very painful.**

 **Anyway, onto the story. I don't own House of Anubis.**

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 _Charlotte's POV_

 _Approximately two weeks later…_

I'd seen a lot of drama in my time. Back at my old school I'd been what some might call a troublemaker, and my friends and I had had more than our fair share of cheaters, heartbreaks, rumours and pregnancy scares. But that being said, I'd never seen anything like what was currently going on in Anubis House.

I was trying to concentrate on my French homework, but it was honestly very difficult given the yelling that was coming from the next room. Fabian and Nina were in the middle of an all-out word war.

I was contemplating getting up and going to see what was going on when the door opened and Patricia entered. I was curious and immediately became defensive. Patricia had claimed to be strictly neutral in the battle that was currently being fought at Anubis House, which meant she wasn't supposed to be talking to me because I was on team Mara.

"The shit hath hitteth the fan," she announced, closing the door behind her.

" _Ten Things I Hate About You_ ," I observed, remembering one of the only English lessons I'd actually ever paid attention to (because who didn't love watching movies while everyone else was working?). "So, what are you doing here?"

"This is my bedroom," she pointed out. "So logically it should be me asking you that question."

She had a point. "I kind of figured I wasn't going to get any homework done in there," I jerked my head in the direction of my bedroom. "Mara and I were studying together, but she left her Geography books downstairs. She'll be back any minute."

"I should probably get out of here then," Patricia said, only half joking. "Wouldn't want her to see you conversing with the enemy."

"Well technically you're not the enemy," I pointed out. "That would be Nina."

Nina and Mara were no longer on speaking terms. But that wasn't even the half of it.

It had all started on the morning after Donkey Day, when Nina and Fabian had been caught on one of their cellar escapades. I knew very little of the events that had occurred because the only two people who had been present had since refused to talk about it, but from what I understood Nina's oh-so-brilliant cover story had been to start making out with her best friend.

Things had been a little tense after that, with Nina and Fabian both being too shy and awkward to be alone together. Nina had dragged one of us girls around everywhere with her for the next week, fearing the 'we're just friends' speech. She had sworn that it was only a cover story to throw Victor off the scent, but of course we all knew that they had both enjoyed it far more than they were letting on.

Just when we'd thought the drama had come to an end, things got very messy very quickly. Fabian had kissed Joy (or Joy had kissed Fabian, more than likely) at the masked ball, crushing all of Nina's secret hopes and dreams.

"This is so stupid," Patricia announced eventually, breaking the silence that had fallen over us.

"Tell me about it," I agreed. "So what are they arguing about in there?"

"Your guess is as good as mine," she shrugged. "Wanna go find out?"

I raised my eyebrows, doubtful that spying on Nina and Fabian arguing was really the best idea.

"Do you want to end this war or not?"

I had to admit that she had a point, so I put down my French book and followed her out of the room. The door to mine and Nina's bedroom was opened a crack, making the shouting much more distinguishable than it had been while we were in Mara and Patricia's room. For some reason I wasn't surprised to see Jerome and Eddie sitting outside the door, Jerome recording the entire argument with his phone.

"Why do you even care?!" Nina's voice floated out of the bedroom.

"Jerome," I said, tilting my head to one side. "Shouldn't you be in there supporting and defending your _girlfriend_?"

That's another thing, the one part of the whole equation that didn't quite add up. The morning after the masked ball Jerome and Nina had walked into breakfast hand in hand and unceremoniously announced that they were an item. This was the reason that Mara and Nina had fallen out. Apparently Mara was very much over Mick and had a new crush, and she had once again let her jealousy get the better of her.

"Probably," Jerome shrugged, but he didn't make any attempt to get up. I just rolled my eyes at his un-boyfriend-like behaviour.

I could hear that the argument going on inside the bedroom had moved on from Nina and Jerome's relationship to Fabian and Joy's kiss. Suddenly a line coming from Fabian stopped the whole conversation in its tracks.

"I thought she was you, okay?"

There was a long silence, and the four of us sitting outside all held our breaths in anticipation. Suddenly we could hear footsteps and the door was flung open before any of us had time to move. Nina was apparently surprised to see us, because she stopped in her tracks and just stared at us for a moment. She soon regained herself, however, and disappeared in the direction of the stairs with a loud huff.

Dinner that evening was more strained than usual, which was saying something considering how tense our meals had been for the last week. Nina was sitting at her usual seat at the head of the table, jaw clenched and avoiding making eye contact with anyone else. Jerome was seated to her left next to Patricia, who had stubbornly refused to take a side and was acting as a barrier between the two main teams that the house had been divided into. I was seated in between her and Mara, the latter having adopted the seat at the other head of the table. Joy was on her left and was sitting much closer to Fabian than he appeared to be comfortable with as he kept shifting his chair closer and closer to Eddie's. The poor new boy seemed very confused by the sudden divide of our house but had apparently sided on team Nina, which was reflected by the fact that he was sitting next to her.

"We're all very quiet tonight," Vera observed as she placed our meal into the middle of the table, some kind of gnocchi with a creamy sauce. Nobody acknowledged or replied to her comment, but she just shrugged it off and went back into the kitchen.

The meal continued in a painful silence. Nina was the first to finish and she swiftly left the table when she had done so. Fabian finished next followed closely by Joy, and they both left the room in silence. Finally Mara's plate was empty and she too left the room.

"So…" it was Patricia who broke the silence. "I don't know about you guys, but I think this is getting out of hand."

"I reckon it got out of hand a long time ago," I agreed, scraping up some sauce with my fork.

"I second that opinion," Jerome put in. "I mean, I get why Nina and Fabian are mad at each other, but does anyone actually know why Mara and Nina stopped talking?"

Patricia and I shared a glance, both knowing the answer to this question. We both remained silent though, knowing that it wasn't our place to disclose this information.

"The reason that they're fighting is irrelevant," Patricia decided. "The point is that this needs to stop."

"But how can we stop it if we…" Eddie began, but trailed off when Patricia sent him a death glare. "Irrelevant. Got it."

"Maybe we should try talking to them," I suggested. "We need to find out exactly what they all want the person they're mad at to do to make it up to them."

Jerome groaned, reaching out to take his third helping of dinner. "That sounds way too complicated," he decided. "Why don't we just lock the three of them in a room and let them fight to the death?"

I honestly couldn't tell whether or not he was joking. "Isn't that a tad… drastic?" I asked.

He just shrugged in reply, his mouth full of gnocchi.

"I say we try Charlotte's idea first," Patricia suggested. "If that doesn't work then we can use your idea, Jerome."

"Then I say we all hope to hell that we're successful the first time round," Eddie said under his breath as he headed into the kitchen to put his plate away, earning an eye roll from Jerome.

By this point I had finished my dinner, and I knew my pile of homework wasn't getting any smaller. "I'll take Mara," I decided, scraping my chair back and standing up. "You guys can fight the other two out between you."

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 **Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed and please leave a review!**


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